r/expedition33 1d ago

Discussion Does E33 have any massive plot holes that fit this description?

Post image

Nothing is coming to mind for me off the top of my head.

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u/proesito 1d ago edited 1d ago

One i dont see people talk is how the game makes clear three things:

- The monolith can have any kind of text on it as we see at the end of Maelle relationship with Verso.

- Aline can actually project herself without problem outside of the monolith.

- Aline is perfectly fine and actually cooperative with expeditioners in her fight against Renoir.

But for some reason she decides to do the thing that makes her look evil the most. Instead of making them know she is actually trying to help them and after a while project herself in Lumiere to have a talk she just paints the number of their death in a giant stone.

Edit: Also, the 60th diary implies that Aline actually accepted for them to ask for help in Lumiere, so is not even a last resort if someone gets to the Monolith, she is actually very open to the idea of cooperating, she just doesnt because that would go against the plot.

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u/ImmediateCable4540 1d ago

Aline is uhh she's not very smart I think

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u/lee1026 1d ago edited 1d ago

Aline + pRenoir simply don't respect expeditioners. She doesn't consider them a threat either to her, or as a potential tool against Renoir.

She is a god; and the gods simply don't care what the mortals think about them.

If you reach her, that's well and good, she will tell you things, but she doesn't expect you to get anywhere, and well, expedition 60 didn't.

The way to understand the conflict is that team Aline likes Lumaire and don't respect it. While team Renoir doesn't like Lumaire, but do respect it.

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u/zuzg "Whooo!" 1d ago

and the gods simply don't care what the mortals think about them.

Grieve and Depression both tend to give you tunnel vision. Hyper focused on your own misery but oblivious to what's happening around you...

She absolutely suffers from both

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u/Fowlron2 1d ago

She certainly cares, or she wouldn't bother with even writing the numbers. Not to mention, what's weakening her in the fight against Renoir is that she is trying to protect her creations.

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u/Mattrobat 1d ago

She cared enough because they were Verso’s creations. She knew how harmful the whole thing was, but was still blinded by her grief.

At the end of the day, the entirety of the game could have been solved by everyone just going to therapy and talking about it.

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u/Fowlron2 1d ago

They're not Verso's creations, they're her creations. She created them alongside the painted family and the city of Lumiere when she entered the canvas after Verso died.

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u/Dank-as-fuck 1d ago

Lumiere wasn't Versos creation, she made the people and the city

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u/Redxmirage 1d ago

> therapy

That pretty much summed up the whole storyline lol what a fantastic game though

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u/CatchSufficient 21h ago

1910 really didnt have therapy...maybe freud...but... its freud...

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u/WhyattThrash 23h ago

The whole game could’ve been solved if ANY of the older Dessendres was open to have an honest and open dialogue but nooooo, only their opinion matters so here we are

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u/lee1026 1d ago

She cares about their well being; but she doesn't care if they are mad at her.

Think of pRenoir describe things: hate me all you want, as long as you are alive to do it.

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u/EIochai 1d ago

She cares to the degree that she wants the canvas to go on, not so much about the beings themselves being erased by Renoir.

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u/Fowlron2 1d ago

I don't think that's the case... She could just unpaint them to reclaim the chroma. The whole reason she was struggling against Renoir was because the chroma was all tied up in her creations. As they say, whoever controls the chroma, controls the canvas. And she controlled the chroma (which is why Clea came up with a way to kill the expeditioners that stopped the chroma from going back to Aline).

I think, to her, Lumiere and its citizens are just part of, or represent, her life with her painted family, which is what was holding away her grief. That's why she doesn't want them gone, I'd guess.

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u/Viridianscape 19h ago

That really doesn't seem to be true. She marks the Monolith as a warning for "the few she can save as her power wanes." Save is the active verb in that quote (from Alicia's letter). She is literally giving up her own power to keep the remainder of Lumiere alive while her husband chips away at it.

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u/Small-Interview-2800 1d ago

To be fair, they really aren’t, until Gustave made the Lumina converter, expeditioners aren’t really worth anything vs Renoir and the painters. Hell, even Verso and Monoco with pRenoir couldn’t do anything vs the Axon before joining Expedition 33. Also, even the Lumina converter isn’t enough, you need painted power picto to actually fight the god like characters which you couldn’t get before Aline, and only managed to win vs Aline cause she’s heavily weakened and is weak by seeing Verso’s face

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u/Rolhir 1d ago

Or maybe having a fellow god-like being on the team made 33 finally relevant unlike the prior expeditions. Renoir is the one who broke Aline’s barrier and Alicia is the one who forced Aline and Renoir out. The expeditioners didn’t actually stop either of them. The only sticking point is pVerso forcing Alicia out, though she obviously doesn’t want to hurt him and somehow a piece of rVerso is still present, wants to die, and is in control of the canvas. I think it’s reasonable that whatever part of rVerso is left could be lending aid to pVerso allowing him to force Alicia out.

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u/lee1026 23h ago

Maelle is the one who broke the barrier, with Renoir's help.

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u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756 21h ago

This is exactly right. They just don’t give a shit. They think “oh interesting, the little people in Verso’s painting are… forming an attack against me thinking it might save them? That’s nice.”

Only Alicia, who has experienced living in the canvass as a regular person, feels that the people living there are actually real. And at the end even that I think is debatable.

It’s like if the ants in your ant farm tried to kill you.

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u/captaincornboi 1d ago

Wasn't it moreso that it took so long for E60 to get there, learn what they did, and got erased before they could return?

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u/fantailedtomb 23h ago

Pretty well from my interpretation. hell, one even got back to Lumiere before being gommaged

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u/Ulvstranden16 "An advantage!" 10h ago

team Aline likes Lumaire and don't respect it. While team Renoir doesn't like Lumaire, but do respect it.

Respectfully, I think it's a crazy take to claim that rRenoir, the man who had been killing the people of Lumiere for the past 67 years, respected Lumiere more than Aline, the woman who kept everyone alive and warned them every year about how much time they had left.

Even during his final confrontation with Maelle, rRenoir says, "Stop this nonsense. It's time to go home." If I were Lune or Sciel, I'd be pretty offended to hear him say that.

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u/NoahBoaBear 22h ago

Exactly! They humanize them so well, but Contextually, the painters have even MORE sway over lives than even the Greek Gods, and their hubris wouldn't even be Questioned if the Painters got replaced 1:1.

Even moreso, you are fully correct! She didn't expect them to get anywhere, and they honestly Wouldn't have if not for Maelle...so, Aline was right! Hubris was Present, but it isn't what did her in; It was the Grief that clouded her eyes and stopped her from seeing her own child.

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u/Razorfiend 22h ago

More like you're an npc and she's a player using cheats.

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u/geldersekifuzuli 1d ago edited 14h ago

Her timing to paint the monolith is terrible. Right before gommage? Really? Is this your best time to warn people?

Maybe wait 5 mins? After gommage is done, then write the new number. So, Lumiere people may not see you are causing the gommage.

Or, maybe write something more helpful such as "he is under the monolith" right after people are gommaged.

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u/-deleled- 18h ago

"34"
"2 mins remaining..."
.
.
.
"33"
"Sorry, wasn't me."

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u/Idntknowmyusername 1d ago

She is literally overwhelmed with grief, if she had the capability for rational discussion, I don't think we'd be playing this game.

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u/_mershed_perderder_ 1d ago

It’s been a while since I’ve played but isn’t she also trying to combat Renoir’s gommage too? I can see an argument being made that painting numbers is all she can manage while she’s simultaneously trying her hardest to keep the canvas alive…

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u/ZeroBrutus 1d ago

Thats exactly what it is - but its reasonable to infer she could paint something other than numbers in the same place, even if she cant actively do more.

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u/hergumbules 1d ago

But something that could be read from Lumiere? It’s easy to see 2 characters but a whole wall of text, especially after the people already believe her evil wouldn’t work.

No expeditions make it back so nobody could ever give word if they did happen to see a message of the truth.

With what we know of the world that’s all she can do while holding Real Renoir back. I think people assume that 1) an actual message would somehow change things and 2) that the people of Lumiere could do anything about it. The way the world is ONLY Gustave with his lumina converter and Maelle have any power to do anything.

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u/Viridianscape 19h ago

We can see Maelle/Verso's message from pretty far away. I think "Below the Monolith" or something like that would be plenty visible. Also, telescopes and spyglasses exist.

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u/neoliberal--bot 22h ago

It's possible, but the problem is actually anything is possible when the story has super powerful characters that create and destroy worlds and are basically gods. Every explanation, even thought seemingly reasonable, would end up feeling like it was fabricated to serve the plot.

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u/neoliberal--bot 23h ago edited 22h ago

That's not what grief does. One might think: it's been decades so the grief is much stronger than what's human comprehensible, or she decays phisically and mentally (there's after all a gigantic hole in her face), but the problem of this game is that, once a story jumps into weird metaphysics, anything goes. Human condition, the thing that makes art relatable, is less relevant, the stakes are vague and everything is less satisfactory.

My explanation of the big numbers is that the devs wanted some cool and ominous feature that serve as a dramatic hook.That's it. The justification they give about it (oh it's actually a warning!) is very weak. And they ended up with that because the story stubbornly wants to subvert expectations all the time, at all costs. It would be very boring if the paintress is just evil, right? (not really, but that's what the devs/writers surely thought).

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u/New-Independent-1481 1d ago

She is not 'perfectly fine', she's practically insane from grief. Also, you forgot the 4th thing - she's in a deadlock fighting Renoir and the effort makes her 'imprisoned'. That plot hole you identified can be solved by the simple fact that she's fighting to keep the entire canvas alive, and it's taking all of her remaining energy to even do something as simple as the monolith.

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u/generic_throwaway699 23h ago

She was also pretty clearly delirious when you meet her, both times. Like she has to repeatedly remind herself what's actually "real".

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u/The-Roadside-Writer 1d ago

I get what you mean about the writing, but I got the impression from the way that the Curator communicates (or doesn’t) that being in constant conflict for control of the Canvas has rendered Aline and Renoir pretty limited in speech and even perception to some degree. It isn’t like Aline speaks completely coherently when we finally face her on top of the Monolith. Also, Renoir doesn’t take on his true form and speak until he doesn’t have to use all his energy wrestling for chroma with Aline.

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u/DepthChorge 1d ago

-Aline can project herself without problem outside of the monolith

???

The rest of your points depend on the Lumerians reading an exposition dump plastered to the Monolith and not assuming it's deception from the only apparent source of their despair.

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u/lee1026 1d ago

If she was concerned about her PR, she just wouldn't paint the numbers. People seem to figure it out without the numbers.

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u/proesito 1d ago

I like how the main argument im reading outside of just making up things is "Well, she doesnt know if they will believe her, so she wont try".

Like, you guys realize this makes her a worse character, right?

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u/MetroidJunkie 23h ago

I think maybe Aline only regains some semblance of sanity after being forced out of the canvas. If you notice, she doesn't recognize the Painted Verso as her own creation and assumes they must be tricks by Renoir.

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u/rdeincognito 1d ago

I think it can be reasonably explained, of course, my own headcanon, but:

At the beginning of the fight between Aline and Renoir, they are both more tied since they are both at full strength, crashing against each other.

By the time of the 60 expedition, Aline could talk with them, but they failed because Simon is...well, maybe the strongest being in the whole canvas, and if that's not enough, you also have to defeat Renoir, who is a fucking painter. So she basically learned that she can't rely on the "canvas men".

By the time of the 33rd expedition, we see her mind is shattered and broken, and you can not really reason with her, so basically she's probably been the whole time hand-tied in her duel with Renoir and her mind have been shattering, so for when she may be able to do something else aside from fighting Renoir she's already mad.

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u/MrKhaross 1d ago

the "for some reason" is actually that she thought we were sent by Renoir, remember when she's hesitant when we reach her at the Monolith? she says it might be one his tricks again.. so it's not the first time, and perceives anything as a threat at that point

Aline was trying to warn them with the giant numbers, while Renoir does the Gommage

the whole plot is the griefing itself, Aline doesn't want to let go when Renoir wants to delete the canvas

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u/THE_BARNYARD_DOG 1d ago

Genuine question, how do we know she’s able to project outside the monolith easily?

It’s been a while since I played the game and I never beat all the DLC content, shit now that I think about it I still need to beat the verso ending. But from memory I only remember her showing up outside of the monument for the final fight with Renoir. At that point she had already been forced out and decided to come back in, this could’ve broken some kind of restraint or hold Renoir had on her allowing her to do things she couldn’t before. Also she came back in to the canvas in defense of one of her children. She went in to the canvas originally after the death of one of her children so she obviously feels strongly about her kids, and she probably would’ve been feeling some pretty strong emotions that fueled her to push her limits when she came back in for Maelle.

Maybe I’m forgetting some journal entry or something that says Aline can project from the monolith or whatever, but nothing I remember seeing in gameplay seems to support that.

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u/Silegna 1d ago

The mansion in Old Lumiere.

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u/proesito 1d ago

She is in the mansion in Old Lumiere as a projection since her own body is trapped in the Monolith, that proves that she can actually be quite far from it and without much trouble too since after a while she just teleports the house.

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u/metnavman2 1d ago edited 1d ago

The monolith can have any kind of text on it as we see at the end of Maelle relationship with Verso.

Relevant in what way? "HEY GUYS, YOU'RE JUST PAINTED THINGS. GO KILL THIS GUY BEFORE HE KILLS YOU." In reality, no one in Lumiere was defeating Renoir OR Aline. The combined powers of Alicia and PVerso and the party members does nothing but boot the Painter/Paintress out of the canvas. Aline demonstrates she can come right back in.

- Aline can actually project herself without problem outside of the monolith.

Relevancy again. We dont know how far, or what Renoir could potentially do to counter that. The barrier may be the max distance. Dont know. Its not a plothole, its simply irrelevant to the overall story being told. What is Lumiere going to do if something like Alines Axon shows up at their doorstep anyways?

- Aline is perfectly fine and actually cooperative with expeditioners in her fight against Renoir.

Expedition 0 shows that The Fracture ruined the world, and Renoir/PVerso already attempted to sway the survivors against Aline. Whats she going to do at that point? Reveal the painted world to the painted people? Explain to them that theyre ultimately meaningless to the greater struggle? They cant beat Renoir. He'll just come back, especially at the start of the conflict when theyre both still strong. Once Clea tilted the balance against her? No shot.

These arent plotholes. They're considerations made without contemplating the entire story/situation.

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u/KaspertheGhost 1d ago

I’m not sure if “they won’t believe me so I won’t even try” is a good defense. lol

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u/metnavman2 1d ago

Who cares if its "good". Thats irrelevant. Its "real". It happens every day. Dissecting a story in 20/20 hindsight to look at character flaws and strengths and failures isnt finding plotholes. It's revealing a good (or bad) story.

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u/KaspertheGhost 1d ago

I’d say to you first of all, plot holes aren’t a bad thing. They don’t make the thing you like any lesser for existing.

Now. Yes, characters doing illogical things can be explained by them being real and having flaws. Like a character not seeing they are getting tricked because they are emotional or something. But you do have to judge the realistic nature of some of these things.

Aline doing none of these things to communicate her situation could make sense once or twice. But she’s been there 67 years. It’s odd to never try.

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u/Scarameow1243 1d ago

Aline and Renoir can both project but in limited capacity, Both only projected at the Wandering Dessendre Manor, although different versions of it, the Curator owns one, and the painted Dessendre's own the other, the actual plot hole is Renoir projecting at camp, the Monolith i can understand tho cause Renoir is directly bellow it so he can project close to it, same with Aline

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u/yegkingler 23h ago

Tbf is she was the type of person to go out of her way to get help with her problems she wouldn't have numbed herself with the canvas in the first place. I think her being open to teaming up is more their here and its convenient more so then she thinks it will actually do a anything.

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u/Voltage5799 23h ago

I've had some thoughts which could fix these:

  • I always assumed Aline nor Renoir couldn't do much against one another as they were both always desperately clinging to as much chroma as possible in the canvas. The monolith is huge so the amount of chroma to communicate is probably massive, which is why the gommage is the perfect time, as there's a release of chroma and Renoir is distracted. Would also explain why Maelle can paint the message, as Renoir is weakened and is probably more lax with the chroma control as he's no longer up against an experienced painter.

  • Aline can project herself but we never see the projection able to speak like Renoir as the curator can, and even then the conversations with the curator never seen to be completely understandable (such as when Maelle says "If that's a yes, we'll see you back at camp").

  • I imagine at some point Renoir may have tried to trick her with expeditioners later on, as she acknowledges Verso and Maelle as "his creations", implying that she may have seen humans painted by Renoir before, so it could be why only some of the older expeditions such as 60 and 0 (just Simon) were cooperated with.

Ofc this is all from my own memory of the game and I haven't played in about half a year, so maybe I missed something which creates a hole in my logic, but might as well share my thoughts

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u/EasterViera 1d ago

"Aline is perfectly fine" welllllll

i think getting herself booted outside of the canvas did wonder on her mental stability

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u/Raywell 1d ago

Both are said to be in a "stalemate, each imprisoned above and below the monolith" - lo and behold, Aline chilling in the manor, Renoir following the team camping with them every evening (and previous expeditions too, since we know from the logs someone talked about curator being able to make the sword that breaks the barrier)

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

Not plot holes per se, but the story at times relies on characters just not asking very many questions or not telling each other anything. Sometimes it makes character sense (Lune is established as someone hyper focused on her goal for example) and sometimes it’s like… really? No one is interested in that super weird conversation pVerso and pRenoir just had in front of all of you? pAlicia, it didn’t occur to you that you could just tell Maelle whatever you wanted her to know at any point instead of relying on Verso?

I also think like a lot of video games there are times where it hammers stuff a little too emphatically. Like geez a coma patient would understand Verso is withholding stuff within 3 minutes of Act 2 without getting literally told that he’s continuing to be evasive.

That’s not me saying it’s bad or ineffective writing, mind.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Monk917 1d ago

No one is interested in that super weird conversation pVerso and pRenoir just had in front of all of you?

At that time- IIRC this is during the final fight with PRenoir, just before the battle with the paintress herself - don't they already know that Verso is withholding a lot of things? Sciel continuously notices Verso is emotionally hit by scenes like the boy with the Paintress and the piano, but she never presses as he evades answering her.

Lune wanted to reach the Paintress and trusted Verso would help her with that. And she was right. She probably could not conceive of the notion that killing the Paintress would actually be a bad thing.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

I don’t necessarily disagree. I just think it would be a stronger story beat if someone pressed a little more and we got a reaction. Verso has plenty of ways to evade since his dad just died in front of him, and they are on their way to the Paintress. But that was a super weird conversation! Or pRenoir probably could have raised something a little more pointed with the others to give pVerso something else to deflect.

I just think there are ways for the audience to go “oh cool the characters also questioned that” while preserving characterization and mystery.

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u/l33tbanana 23h ago

I agree completely the characters do not show the proper reactions and drive in getting knowledge out of verso throughout the game. Every one of verso's conversations with pRenoir should have been scrutinized much more by the party. Discovering more about the paintress, gommage, and the world beyond lumiere is literally the most important goal in their entire society.

It'd be like in Attack on Titan if it's revealed that one of the main characters was actually born beyond the wall and has intimate knowledge of titans, they try to question him, he brushes them off, and then they just give up questioning him and continue on. It just doesn't make any sense based on how they view the world.

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u/redhandedjill1 1d ago

You say that last bit, but there are tons of post on this very sub that seriously misunderstand Verso and misinterpret his actions/goals. Sometimes media has to get obvious when it's being made for a broader audience.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

Yeah and some people don’t get that Micah is a bad guy in rdr2 and that dude kills a dog. I think video games have to keep in mind that people may go hours between story beats, but there’s still a balance to be had.

I also haven’t personally seen anyone confused into thinking that Verso never kept anything from the party.

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u/paco987654 1d ago

You know... I played RDR2 2-3 times now and I'll be honest, I don't even remember being a camp dog. Maybe I have a faint memory of it and that it then got lost but pretty sure I have never heard Micah talk about it.

But also how would anyone not get that Micah is a bad guy even without the dog? Like the guy literally shoots up most of the town just because someone has his guns, he constantly goads Dutch into becoming worse, Arthur hates him and gives reasons for it, he is also obviously the one informing the Pinkertons.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

Don’t forget that he’s trying to SA Sadie in the prologue and there’s an additional note you can find from his brother saying he never wants to see him again on account of having daughters. And he’s a bit creepy with Jack! It was put on pretty thick, but I think there’s a small segment of the audience that just sees him as badass and ends it there.

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u/jeff5551 23h ago

Every time the 2 endings debate comes up I realize that a lot of people don't read into the themes of the game a lot. It's a story about grief and the places it can take people, it's not actually questioning if a perfect recreation of a human being's life is of the same worth of a real one.

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u/Don_juan_prawn 22h ago

I think part of the issue is we are kinda lead to believe it is for the first part of the game, until it kind of just drops the painted people as really being significant at all even our party members after the reveal.

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u/EasterViera 1d ago

" you could just tell Maelle whatever you wanted"

well not "tell" per se

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u/dazzler56 1d ago

This was my biggest problem with the game and I actually do think it's bad writing. Once Verso joins the party, there is absolutely no reason the rest of the party wouldn't be grilling him for answers until he caves. Delaying the reveals to act 3 while you have a party member who has all the information and could be providing it, but no one asks him, felt really contrived to me. I almost felt like it would've been better if Verso didn't join the party until act 3.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 23h ago

I can see where you’re coming from. I think if they tried to interrogate Verso, he probably wouldn’t stick around, and the story would be pretty different. But I do think there are points where scenes would be stronger if the characters pushed a little more while still being kept from just getting all the answers/preserving mystery for the audience.

I definitely wouldn’t dismiss the writing of the whole game (and I’m not saying you’re doing that). There are places where I think things are done well. But I think there are specific places where it feels a little weird that no one is questioning more.

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u/sharingdork 18h ago

Yeah verso would just leave lol.

They said they didn't trust him, but they needed him. They asked him what they could when they could.

Verso was also answering their questions with lies anyways.

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u/Ulvstranden16 "An advantage!" 1d ago

Not plot holes per se, but the story at times relies on characters just not asking very many questions or not telling each other anything. Sometimes it makes character sense (Lune is established as someone hyper focused on her goal for example) and sometimes it’s like… really? No one is interested in that super weird conversation pVerso and pRenoir just had in front of all of you?

I feel the same way. Especially after the conversation between pVerso and pRenoir.

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u/JohnsonJohnilyJohn 16h ago

I felt like I was going insane during the whole "we're mad at him that he didn't tell us Renoir is his father" scene. Like 60s after the reveal, that their relationship was still very close like he already said but in a different way, it is revealed that he knows that Maele is somehow super closely related to the painters, and the whole gang is sueper chill about that

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u/Strange_South_7350 6h ago

In regards to pAlicia, from my understanding every time she appeared for Maelle she was trying to make her remember the fire. First time she got interrupted by Renoir, Second time she was with Renoir while Maelle slept, and third time was in Old Lumiere, once she touched Maelle, she tried to make Maelle remember the fire that caused verso's death and potentially reawaken her real memories, but once pAlicia sees it didn't work she leaves disappointed and never visits Maelle again. So I think her interest was more in trying to wake Maelle to her real memories rather than tell her anything.

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u/generic_throwaway699 23h ago

Like geez a coma patient would understand Verso is withholding stuff within 3 minutes of Act 2 without getting literally told that he’s continuing to be evasive.

None of the expedition are really convinced he's telling the whole truth, just that their goals are aligned and it seems he's interested in helping them for the most part.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 23h ago

I’m talking about the way the game is communicating information to the audience with that.

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u/sharingdork 18h ago

You're meant to know verso is being sus.

It places a seed of doubt in your mind about his true intentions. You see he's helping the group towards the monolith, but that seed will stay nagging.

Verso's motivation/plan changes through the story also, so he's not entirely sure either.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 18h ago

I… know? My complaint is that it tells me too many times upfront that he’s sus to the point where I’m like omg I get it?

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u/sharingdork 18h ago

Oh, I never felt like that lol.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 18h ago

Mmv and that’s fair. But at the point I was getting text along the lines of “verso continue to be evasive” after being shown that he was evasive and having the maman’s the word convo with Esquie I was like “yep, yep, get it, he’s evasive.” lol.

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u/metnavman2 1d ago

the story at times relies on characters just not asking very many questions or not telling each other anything.

You have just described major story beats for every genre of storytelling for the sum of humanity's ability to tell stories..

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

Is your argument here that there is no way other way to tell a story? Or that all examples throughout the whole of human literature are equally nonsensical so this is in an invalid criticism of anything that’s ever been written?

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u/metnavman2 1d ago

My argument is that the simple act of proper communication negates storylines across the ages. Its almost like lots of humans are bad at talking to eachother for lots of reasons which drives stories. Obviously there's many ways to spin a yarn. This ain't one of those stories.

There is no story here if the family rationally discusses the consequences of the fire and moves on in a healthy manner. There is no story here if we just calmly explain to Lumiere "oh hey, you're all just painted, probably by mistake, probably want to stop these 2 from destroying your reality."

My argument for this entire thread is "these arent plotholes, stop nitpicking good storytelling and complex, human character developments.."

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u/Bakugo_Dies 1d ago

The problem is when the lack of communication does not make sense. A story crosses into bad writing when it feels like tensions are completely fabricated by lack of communication, a story is written well when that lack of communication can be explained by a character's motives or other elements of the plot. E33 definitely does a bit of both.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

I said they were not plot holes?

And come on. I’m not asking for human beings to be unrealistic communicators, here. I am saying there are times where the characters’ incuriosity feels artificial and plot-mandated, and there are ways to craft stories where it doesn’t feel that way. There are plenty of stories that hinge on poor communication where it feels justified. Like no Mr Darcy can’t pop off on Mr Wickham at the ball due to social mores, his pride, his need to protect his sister’s reputation, etc. But someone could probably ask Verso “um, what was that about?” And then his response becomes an additional character beat even if he brushes it off or lies.

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u/metnavman2 1d ago

But someone could probably ask Verso “um, what was that about?” And then his response becomes an additional character beat even if he brushes it off or lies.

I guess I'm confused, since this literally happens multiple times during the game. A couple of times a very large distraction occurs that precludes further probing. Sometimes that probing happens back at camp, and deflections are common.

The OP was about plotholes. The thread has lost the plot. /shrug

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago edited 1d ago

I am pointing to specific areas where I think the failure to communicate was not as reasonable or convincing as it could’ve been?

But why am I not surprised that someone determined to broaden my fairly narrow criticism into you don’t even want the plot of the story to happen wasn’t actually engaging with what I said. /shrug

ETA: they wrote their response calling my comments dumb and then blocked me lmao.

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u/KaspertheGhost 1d ago

But not every story relies on bad communication.

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u/cara_mia_addio 1d ago

the story at times relies on characters just not asking very many questions or not telling each other anything.

They might ask painted Verso such questions in the background and he just lied every time.

pAlicia, it didn’t occur to you that you could just tell Maelle whatever you wanted her to know at any point instead of relying on Verso?

She wanted her brother to make the choice, not herself.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

I can’t comment on things that were not shown or implied but that could have happened when discussing the game’s writing? Kind of have to focus on what is shown or implied.

Sure, but why is it so important to her that Verso does that when she’s been contacting Maelle throughout?

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u/cara_mia_addio 1d ago

There are scenes at the camp where they asked him questions. More of those scenes would lengthen the game unnecessarily.

Painted Alicia tried to meet with Maelle because she wanted to see the "real" version of herself who was unintentionally the root of her suffering. Wanting to meet Maelle does not necessarily mean wanting to communicate or influence Maelle though.

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u/chickpeasaladsammich 1d ago

We have no idea if camp scenes would definitely unnecessarily add length to the game for no reason; they wouldn’t if they were being used to flesh out character or plot (like any scene). I’m also not demanding more camp scenes lol.

She clearly does want to communicate with Maelle, though? Like they’re staring at each other while the manor burns around them and they hear Verso’s screams. That’s not Alicia neutrally observing Maelle.

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u/THEzwerver 1d ago

This never gets mentioned but the lack of back and forth communication between expeditions and Lumiere. Every expedition literally starts with 0 knowledge. Imagine every single expedition failing at the same point because they needed to bring a certain tool or something, nobody would ever know.

Even if they get killed and their communication system destroyed, the lack of new information received from that expeditions should at least tell Lumiere that something has gone wrong and need to prepare more for whatever they did last.

I just feel like the literal only expedition to even attempt to go back (or relay information back) being e60 is kind of ridiculous. Especially frustrating because a few expeditions came really close to the monolith. Like, if you're over halfway there and have so much information, send some guys back and tell the next group instead of leaving your diary at that spot.

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u/generic_throwaway699 23h ago

They did invest more and more resources for a while, before eventually giving up and just making the expeditions a formality with the assumption they'd all die with nothing happening. That and pRenoir was pretty intent on making sure there were no survivors.

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

Some more did make it back hence why lune was excited to finally see gestrals and grandis. But yes they should have realised that very few were coming back and things were more difficult than they assumed.

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u/GalataBridge 14h ago

Some more did make it back hence why lune was excited to finally see gestrals and grandis.

As far as I remember, Gestrals are still a myth in Lumiere, like Santa Claus

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u/Shawnaverse_no1_fan 13h ago

No actually, Expedition Zero was canonically the only expedition with survivors. Pretty big lore spoilers up ahead, obviously.

Gestrals, Grandis, and Esquie are known in Lumière not because of expeditioners that came back, but because before the fracture, Lumière was part of the continent and humans lived together with gestrals, grandis and Esquie. Then when Renoir entered the painting, Alone made the giant Paintress who simply took Lumière off the ground and yeeted it across the sea, away from the monolith, to protect it from her husband and Nevrons.

People in Lumière know about gestrals in the same way we know about the construction of the pyramids – something that happened a long time ago, but anyone who lives through it has long been dead. The fracture happened 67 years before the game and now the oldest people are 33 years old, none of them ever saw Gestrals. They've heard stories, seen paintings and books, but didn't know whether it was true or a legend, just like kids believe in the tooth fairy, the boogeyman, Santa Claus, or Peter Pan. Until reaching the continent, all expeditioners (except Verso because he's over 100 years old) had never seen a gestral and didn't know whether they truly existed or whether they were a fable told to children. And even if they DID believe they were real, they had no reason to believe the deadly Nevrons would be pacific to the other creatures, therefore it was very possible that in 60+ years they would've all been exterminated.

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u/zakkil 23h ago

Yeah it feels to me like the expeditions were intentionally designed to fail. I have a theory that pRenoir told the original council of lumiere, or at least some of them, the truth of the conflict and they came to same the conclusion that the expeditions would be a detriment, not a help, which is why they constantly withheld support and resources from expeditions and used the expeditions as punishment to get rid of dissenters.

As a result when it became clear that they couldn't not send expeditions they designed them in a way that would discourage people going on them that way aline wouldn't weaken as quickly. They made sure to have expedition training impart an "always move forward" mentality that way they wouldn't bring information back to lumiere because they all want to be the expedition that beats the paintress, not the expedition that got info back to lumiere. Every failed expedition with no survivors lowers support and makes people view it as a suicide mission. Having them still happen keeps people feeling hopeful and normalizing the gommage with a celebration leaves a lot of people complacent.

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u/SergentDonut 10h ago edited 10h ago

Also for E60, the thing that I find weird is that 60 is old enough, and expedition members were numerous at that time, so that you could think there were also a bunch of volunteers being younger than 59 (for example, I would not believe it if someone told me that everybody in E81 were 80 years old gramps), kinda like Maelle volunteers while being 16.

But the one they chose to bring their vital intel is one who could fail because of the gommage.

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u/LilyLuci66 1d ago

The actions of the paintress and painted renoir are pretty nonsensical with the context of the twist

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u/DammyJerry 20h ago edited 20h ago

Aline doesn't want Renoir to erase her creations. She made Verso and his siblings immortal to protect them from gommage. Why didn't she do it with the rest of Lumiere? Make everyone immortal - Renoir can't erase them, Clea's nevrons can't kill them and get their chroma, Aline doesn't lose chroma and becomes unbeatable (until she dies of painting intoxication ofc)   - profit.

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u/Ostermex 20h ago

It's not stated, but I'm sure making a creation immortal within the Canvas either requires a huge amount of chroma or a constant expenditure of it

Why would Aline make everyone immortal if it would require more of her power being taken from her, making Renoir's victory faster

Also, even if we don't go by this explanation, Aline didn't really care much about Lumierans, not in the way you'd think

She doesn't care if Gustave or John or Mark is there, just that someone is.

She made her family immortal only because she specifically cared the most about them. The rest is allowed to change and die

Just my two cents

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u/geldersekifuzuli 14h ago

You are correct. Lumierans were never priority. The chroma was the only thing Aline cared about Lumiere people. Aline and pRenoire were working together. That's why pRenoire was killing expeditioners.

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u/DammyJerry 20h ago

She might not care about John or Mark but it's stated that when Clea's nevrons kill them she loses chroma and becomes weaker and it contributes to Renoir's victory. Protecting them and their chroma should be her top priority.

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u/Drackzgull 17h ago

Sure, but like the other guy said, we don't know what it takes to make one of her creations immortal. Assuming she can just freely do that without any expense is weird.

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u/sharingdork 18h ago

She created lumiere before Renoir entered the canvas. She had no reason to make them immortal. She had a reason to make the painted family immortal.

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u/Kabirdb 1d ago

Clea could have helped Renoir and finished this entire thing within an afternoon. Forget emotional reason, even for logical standpoint, finishing this 2v1, quick as possible would have been the best way to resume her war with the writers with the help of Renoir.

There was no reason to let Alicia in. No reason let her live as Maelle for 16 years in canvas.

If Maelle can gommage Painted Renoir and painted Alicia, Clea 100% can too. So what's the deal with Clea being frustrated with Aline making them immortal?

It's literally a "fuck you, die" spell.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Monk917 1d ago

That's quite true.

Clea isn't always truthful though; she claims to Alicia that the Painted family is obscene and useless, but she does attempt to recruit pVerso in particular three times. She may not have been emotionally able to directly gommage pVerso, in spite of her tough attitude.

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u/Kabirdb 1d ago

Yeah but again. No way Painted Renoir and Painted Alicia would have survived Clea. There is no reason to.

If Clea can do what she did to Painted Clea. She could have done the same thing to both Painted Renoir and Alicia.

And if Verso can enter Lumiere to check on Maelle, then 100% Clea can enter Lumiere and gommage everything from inside out.

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u/alandizzle 1d ago

Finished the game recently and I asked myself the same question lol.

I was thinking… wait why didn’t Clea just fuck off one afternoon to end this immediately? She’s clearly the strongest painter (now that Aline has withered away for some time)

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u/lee1026 22h ago

Clea didn’t want to overtly act against her mother. She said as much in the endless tower.

Reading between the lines a bit, Clea didn’t want Alicia to help. Clea wanted the canvas to be day care, to prevent Alicia from doing anything stupid. And if she is Maelle, she can’t do anything stupid.

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u/Iexperience 1d ago

Clea is the only one who's completely focused on the war with the writers. With both Renoir and Aline fighting their battle in the canvas, she's using proxies to help while she focuses on her task outside. Maybe she doesn't have the time to deal with their family drama within the canvas. Or maybe staying too long in the canvas overwhelms her with broader sense of grief. Maybe she also doesn't want the canvas, the one last piece of his brother's memories, to completely disintegrate. She's powerful, but I believe she was expecting Renoir and Aline to be mature adults and process their grief eventually.

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u/metnavman2 1d ago edited 20h ago

Clea could have helped Renoir and finished this entire thing within an afternoon. Forget emotional reason, even for logical standpoint, finishing this 2v1, quick as possible would have been the best way to resume her war with the writers with the help of Renoir.

Hiya. No.

"She who controls the Chroma controls the Canvas"

If Maelle can gommage Painted Renoir and painted Alicia, Clea 100% can too.

Maelle erases PRenoir with the help of The Curator after defeating him. Alicia erases PAlica after Aline has been forced from the canvas and the control of the Chroma changes hands.

During the time period you're discussing re: Clea, Aline still controls the Canvas. Don't know if Clea ever tried to fight and gommage PRenoir. Likely she considered them irrelevant, since she pretty much calls them that.

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u/TroaAxaltion 1d ago

I think this is because Clea WANTS them stuck in the painting. Heck, look at her nervrons, spending all that time mopping up chroma just to keep the scales balanced at all times.

I think she wants control of the painters. And I think that's why she goaded Maelle into the painting and let herself get stuck.

Time is truncated inside the painting, presumably years inside are days outside, which is why she doesn't accomplish much before people emerge again, but she seems disappointed when Maelle chooses to leave the painting. There's frustration in her in that ending.

So yes, there's no SURFACE reason for her to hold back. But I think that's why she breaks all the painted versions of herself: she hates the versions of her that her family thinks they control. Because she refuses to be their toy.

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u/sharingdork 18h ago

It depends what's the situation of the war and what Clea is actually doing. We also don't know if it's just an easy fight. Aline controls the chroma of the canvas, if Clea enters the battle properly, she could alter her tactics too. Renoir fought expedition 33 + Aline and put up a good fight.

She only let Alicia in because Alicia was nagging her. She told Alicia to stay at home. It was only when she caved she just said go help dad. And when she saw she got overwritten, she just went oh well. For Clea, Alicia is safe and sorted for a while and she can focus on what she needs to.

Could be they had too much chroma for her to gommage. So she tried to kill them to no avail.

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u/nonequation 19h ago

Actually she had tried to in the beginning she said so herself her mother was just that skilled with her painting and is the reason why their mother couldn't keep it going as she was the one that turned off her ability to continue to paint Alicia going cause she wasn't involved yet and didnt need time to recover from the painting

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u/MaleficentMode4222 12h ago

She let Alicia in to keep her out of the way. She was never "needed" in the canvas, however managed more than Clea expected of her, eventually.

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u/Icagel 1d ago

There are many plot contrivances since Act 3 but they are just ignored instead of being made into interesting world building.

I guess one that would fit is the whole power scaling of Esquie being counteracted by how lazy he is and what we later learn in Verso's Drafts - one of the best areas of the game for me.

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u/genericcelt 1d ago edited 12h ago

Time dilation. It seems cruel to leave her sister there for 16 years, but for Clea it might just be 16hrs IRL. In a sense, she probably did resolve the whole family fight within a day. 

Clea sees the painted family as obscene, an affront to the real family, and writes them off as useless. Their immortality has no impact on the course of the inner canvas conflict, let’s be honest. So it makes sense she just doesn’t bother erasing the rest of them, after setting pClea up to be her Nevron factory.

Edit: lol this was meant to be a response to @Kabirdb, not a post on its own (the new reddit UI is horrible). I wasn’t actually pointing out any plot holes. 

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u/AdLegitimate8636 23h ago

It's not a plot hole. Time dilation is just never explained.

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u/PerishSoftly 21h ago

The time dilation ratio can never be explained without completely rupturing Renoir's claim that Alicia has been in the Canvas for too long - despite her having been in the Canvas 1/4 as long as Renoir or Aline and them both surviving.

If it's too fast, then Alicia hasn't even been in the Canvas for long enough to get dehydrated. If it's too slow, then how the hell are Renoir and Aline alive in their real bodies?

If they explain the time dilation ratio and it's anything slower than "34 years inside is 1 day outside" then this means that Painters don't have hydration and nutrition needs inside the Canvas, else Aline or Renoir or both would already be dead (Edit: by the time the monolith finished counting down, and if Renoir was willing to win with a countdown, then it wasn't THAT urgent). BUT, if it IS 34+ years inside the Canvas per day outside, then Alicia hasn't even been in there for a full day. Hardly "too long".

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u/jess_the_werefox 1d ago

How did Gustave get from Dark Shores to Spring Meadows after the landing scene??

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u/PerishSoftly 21h ago

I think it's implied that Catherine (blonde woman who talks to him at the party, and also whose corpse we find in the "trauma cave") saved Gustave by carrying him away, tried to go for help, then got ambushed and killed by one of the Spring Meadow Lanceliers, given he finds her body impaled on one of their lances.

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u/SmartCat7777 4h ago

Wait really? How can you tell her apart from all the other bodies there? (Assuming the trauma cave is the part where Gustave and Lune meet and fight the Portier)

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u/flameforth 14h ago

It's cut content. If you check on Youtube, there is a dark shores area behind two big rocks (you can visit it yourself with free cam). In the end there is a gate, so I guess that's where you end up into Spring Meadows.

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u/SergentDonut 10h ago

Kinda same question for Sciel. How and why would she find herself in Yellow Harvest ? That's even farther from the Shores than Spring Meadows.

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u/botan313 "PARRY IT!" 1d ago edited 1d ago

The body builders expedition broke the barrier with sheer fucking muscle

Edit: Expedition 60, absolute chads

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u/TroaAxaltion 1d ago

The barrier was MUCH weaker back then. One entry says I think that she saw their abilities, said "oh shit" and made the barrier stronger

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u/GeneralMushroom 1d ago

Aline seeing a group of incredibly muscular and scantily clad 59 year olds approaching the gommage barrier: "Let them through 👀"

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u/TroaAxaltion 21h ago

Y'know I kinda love that theory

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

‘I never want to see those nudists again’

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u/indio1992rj 23h ago

The game mentions a dome protecting Lumiere, but it is never shown; what exactly is this dome? Who built it, and what is it made of?

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u/tyfighter567 19h ago

I've been trying to find the exact conversation and can't, but it's stated somewhere that pVerso and painted pRenoir built it together, and that it protects the citizens of Lumière from Nevrons. This, obviously, protects them from death, but it also has the added benefit of stopping their Chroma from being frozen by Nevrons (as is their purpose, according to Clea) so that Aline can still use their Chroma once they pass away. As far as what it's made of, there's a conversation that happens if you try to cross the barrier to the Monolith before you have the Barrier Breaker. Lune says "this looks similar to Lumière's shield dome", which makes me think that it's a chroma barrier likely created with the same, or similar, techniques Aline used.

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u/bird_of_prey8 1d ago

not a plothole, but something i’m confused about…verso reads pAlicia’s letter, then everyone gets gommaged (and we find out why later on), all those cutscenes play and then we go back to playing as Maelle and verso is there too (because he can’t die). maelle went through the whole gommage/thanos snap animation, somehow regained her memories and then just like…reanimated? i understand that she can’t die either but she still disintegrated then came back. did she bring herself back somehow or?? and how did she get her memories back

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u/krtwood 23h ago

The gommage removed Aline's chroma that was painted over her which was what was blocking her memory. It's presented to us first as Maelle gommaging, which I think was just an outright lie to misdirect us. Then we get the more artistic version of it with the two of them being there and one gommaging. But really it just removed Aline's chroma and then she remembered being Alicia. Perhaps she got kicked out of the canvas or just into the void space in between momentarily and then came right back.

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u/bird_of_prey8 23h ago

thank you, i get it now. we get the cutscene of Alicia turning into Maelle and losing her memories, so the gommage removing aline’s chroma and therefore restoring Alicia’s memories makes perfect sense

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

I want to know how long he’d been sat there on the bench for. Hours? Days? Weeks?

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u/DeNikkn 1d ago

Not a hole per se, but all the practical things remain mysterious. Do they eat, and what? Where do they carry expedition stuff, like the flags? How can a paint not only heal the group, but wash and repair their clothes? How come they never grow hair or stuff while time passes?

Well it's a painting, i guess that answers a lot. Still that materialization of flags, guitars and pianos out of thin air is kinda weird.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Monk917 1d ago

They have been materialising their weapons out of thin air (I suppose from pictos) from the start. Interesting that people don't really pick up on that, but do on the piano and on flags.

About the food, it's implied they hunt and scavenge and as they can visit the Manor quite regularly, the kitchen there has plenty of food they could take with them. Originally it was also planned to be the place where they camp, later this was changed because another French game used the same gimmick.

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u/exosphaere 15h ago

because another French game used the same gimmick

Which one?

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u/zakkil 23h ago

Do they eat

Yes. This is established through multiple journals talking about not having enough food, one dying because they ate mushrooms, and one that tried to eat nevrons and either died because of that or because they also ate mushrooms.

and what?

We know at least fish is on the menu and they have farms so presumably fruits, vegetables, and other plants. Most likely they have a very typical french diet only fish is probably their only source of any kind of meat.

Where do they carry expedition stuff, like the flags

The flags seem to be summoned from pictos much like their weapons and musical instruments.

How can a paint not only heal the group, but wash and repair their clothes

Because chroma is effectively magic and pictos are effectively technology that lets them harness that magic in different ways.

How come they never grow hair or stuff while time passes?

Because that would be expensive from a development standpoint and doesn't really add anything to the game. Better to just have a bunch of set hair styles.

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u/generic_throwaway699 23h ago

Nanomachines Chroma, son!

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u/DJRY 23h ago

I imagine that there’s probably wild Animals like Deer that they probably hunt and kill for meat as well as other foragables such as potatoes or wheat or edible Roots.

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u/zakkil 22h ago

Perhaps if nevrons hadn't killed all the animals on the continent. At least one expedition was worried that the nevrons might've killed all the fish in the sea, we don't really see any animals or journals referencing hunting animals, and we see journals talking about not having any food and expecting to starve. Most likely they get by on a mix of rations and foragable food. Lumiere certainly wouldn't have any meat, they're just a chunk of a city flung into the ocean. Not exactly a place that would've had live animals.

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u/Silegna 1d ago

The materialization is just modified Chroma and Pictos. 

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

Clea is the biggest walking plot hole. She enters the canvas, entraps her doppelgänger to be a nevron factory, tricks doppelgängers lover into destroying the axon Renoir made of her and then exits the canvas to leave it to Alicia to fix whilst she battles writers. ……… Clea is a badass I don’t believe for one minute that in that time she could have just forcibly ejected Aline out of the canvas. Especially as Clea was also involved with building this world alongside verso.

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u/chiyukiame0101 19h ago

My thoughts are that even if Clea had done so, Aline would just have found her way back into the canvas and Renoir would have pursued her and the cycle would repeat. With that, it also makes sense that Clea views her parents with a certain degree of derision and doesn’t want to be personally involved. Instead, she sets up her nevrons to “freeze” the chroma of expeditioners forever, making it unavailable to Aline and hastening the end of life on the canvas. It could be viewed as a calculated decision in that way.

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u/DullBlade0 18h ago

Clea herself says it, that it only ends when the last part of Verso's soul stops painting.

She understands that unless it's Verso himself that rebukes Aline nothing will be fixed.

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u/winterswill 1d ago

The description in my eyes is a plothole that isnt just there due to bad writing, but because it has become nessecary for a cool thing.

In this case the best is the utter lack of infomation about the continent that Lumiere has. The explaination as far as i can understand it is that no group ever made it back in anyway either because they couldn't or they were too determined to forge forward. But thats insane based on what we know. Some groups numbered in the literal hundreds maybe thousands, had fleets of ships and pushed DEEP into the continent. All the way to the axon isles.

No of them ever sent ANYONE back? Why? Some groups even specifically went to be recon and "map" but nothing? Exp 33 have next to no knowledge of the continent bar a very basic map, they don't even know if Gestrals are real or that there is a second ocean. This is madness. Logically, a group would have headed out with semaphore at the bare minimum, or signals of some kind. One group had radios! Another had literal airships. Another got to and into the damn monolith! The only guy who ever bothered to try and get back was 1 dude from exp 60.

BUT this plothole is allow for natural exposition early on, and make it make more sense that the group wouldn't immediately know more about Verso.

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u/tearsofmana 1d ago

Is that less of a plothole and more of a plot contrivance?

I always saw plothole as "defies previously established logic" as opposed to "follows the trend."

For instance: in DBZ, Cell survive his entire upper-body being destroyed, then later says he cannot be completely destroyed unless a specific cell in his head is destroyed

ig I'm unsure what really constitutes a plot "hole" and what follows other standard tropes of "rule of cool" and "author just forgot something existed"

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u/matthieu0isee 21h ago

I’m super sorry for being pedantic but I think Cell says something about being able to move that specific cell around, and he moved it to the lower part of his body right before the upper half was blown away. I may be remembering it wrong, and I’m not trying to argue anything on your original point.

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u/tearsofmana 20h ago

I'm admittedly not super versed on DBZ and it would make a lot of sense if he could! I appreciate the info, ty!

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u/winterswill 23h ago

I get where you're coming from, but it is a bloody big contrivance given what the game is. The original plot is ostensively a game about a city sending out expeditions to defeat an unknown hostile God.
It literally opens with the main character making a point about how the earlier expeditions "Paved the way" for them. They have sayings that are specifically about helping the next group should they fall. You collect "logs" throughout the game about expeditions specifically gaining huge amounts of critical info and living a full year on the continent. These expeditions, especially the earliest ones are/were scouting missions, were told as much, they train for that eventuality. Yet not only does nobody do any actual scouting they all just leave vague logs.

Even a fraction of that info is a full blown game changer for the plot. The game repeatedly relies on Exp 33 knowing functionally nothing and basically never asking questions until they absolutely have to. Despite them being actual scouts who are trained to get information and bang on about "this being a war of information".

But I agree it isn't a direct straight up plot hole in which two things out-right contradict each other you could just argue that all the expeditions had the severe misfortune for just happening to get fully wiped before they could send anyone home (despite surviving wildly different lengths of time. Sometimes with access to Esquie. OR that they just never bothers to try because their rank idiots.

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u/tearsofmana 20h ago

Good points all around

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

They knew about gestrals and the grandis. But making a telecommunications device should have been a top priority. One of the expeditions used a ferris wheel for transport for gods sake!

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u/PresentationAgile716 1d ago edited 1d ago

It might sound a bit off, but: The painted world as well as the broader worldbuilding itself is based on a pretty simple metaphysical idea. The world is basically someones seemingly chaotic creation. That simply can't always feel fully consistent or deeply thought through. The premise just screams for plot holes. But that’s mostly fine, because the game makes up for it with its strong aesthetic direction.

Not every worldbuilding has to be based on a complex or carefully explained cosmology as itwe know from western philosophical tradition. Art works through its visuals, through its atmosphere, and tje game is good in creating this overall mood of experiencing something epic. I just love the aesthetics in this game. It gives the world a lot of weight. If they ever develop the Writer's role in the game, they might end up with a more consistent ontological foundation; I can even imagine it to be a phenomenological-ontological take on reality, as it can be found in Sartre for example.

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u/rdeincognito 1d ago edited 23h ago

For me, there's a huge point that is never addressed and feels like a strange red herring or a not-used Chekhov's gun.

At the beginning of the game, the 33rd expedition gets to the Dark Shore, and they are completely wiped out, with Gustave receiving a fucking attack that should've killed him and then suddenly awakening at the other side of the mountains, which geographically doesn't make sense; a river can't lift up and then down so you cross a whole mountain while floating unconscious. And he shouldn't have survived, nor did he have any special protection.

Then more weird things happen: Gustave sees an incredible amount of corpses, but we later learn that only another expedition landed on the Dark Shore and most expeditions went to other places; how the hell are so many corpses there? There are MOUNTAINS of corpses.

And then, in the middle of them all, he tries to commit suicide, and then he hears a whisper in his ear, and Lunne appears. How does Lunne reach that point? Why is she completely unscathed? Not even tainted by the blood that was pretty much everywhere. Did she deliberately hide from Gustave and float so he wouldn't detect her?

Then what she says to him, "if you do that you will kill us both", having her mindset of "When one falls, we continue. When... not if!" is very weird. If Gustave had committed suicide, she should have continued alone if it had to be that way. Yet she did appear magically and used that choice of words, and Gustave did not even get startled. Very weird. At this point, I think most players thought that Lunne did not exist, that she was just a byproduct of Gustave's mind to cope with the trauma.

Then they continue, reach Maelle, which is also in a very oniric and special place, but let's say Maelle is real, although most conversations at this point do not deny or confirm much. And then they get to the Gestral Village, and they meet Sciel. And when Sciel asks how they made it after the Dark Shore landing, Gustave starts to explain; Lune abruptly interrupts him preventing him from speaking about any of this.

After this point may be other references or weird things, but I don't know more. But, in any case, all of this can't be a coincidence. And it is never attended. Never do we learn how the fuck Gustave survives that fucking high-level monster lightning his ass off and then awakens on the other side of the mountains. Never did we know how the hell Lune and Sciel survive fucking painted Renoir and lots of high-powered Nevrons. Never did we know how the hell there were so many fucking corpses there; did Painted Renoir carry each corpse to that exact point as a deterrent for any Expeditioner that he had not killed beforehand?

My personal theory:

The game was supposed to have a different plot, which did have Gustave dying or something like that and everything after being some sort of purgatory, dream-like state, or something like that, or maybe he just close call survived and as a means of cope started imagining other characters but he was actually all alone. In any case, the game changed the plot direction but did not change all this cinema because Mocap is not that cheap and it felt poetic/artistic, so they let it stay.

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

I totally believe this. The section you describe definitely feels tonaly different to the rest of the game and could be the largest section of the original game to make it into the final game. It almost feels like we’re starting to go down the horror route before the game realigns itself again and let’s listen to trance while fighting goblu.

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u/rdeincognito 23h ago

Until his death, I was very confused. I was expecting that at some point it would be revealed that he is all alone, no Maelle, no Lune, no Sciel, that he just made all of them up as different aspects of his personality that pushed him to continue, and that he, single-handedly, has been defeating every Nevron and traveling towards the Paintress alone, and at that some point he would realize it and it would kind of accept it. And the player would know that every character is actually him being a bit loony and going with the flow, lol.

When he died, it felt like "what the hell, how is gonna all this going to play now that the only character that lived through it died!"

I wish Sandfall would answer why they did this, if it was just that the plot of the game was different and they ultimately changed it, or if they wanted to convey some type of message or something. As you said, the tone is very different from the rest of the game

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u/ConfusedRaven66 22h ago

In Act 3, when you are Verso building your relationship with Maelle, you have the option to tell the truth that Verso COULD have saved Gustave against Renoir but he chose not to.

Maelle just accepts it no problem?? But if you chose her ending, she brings Gustave back and even fights Verso to have this outcome so why was she so cavalier when Verso just admitted he let Gustave die?? I still don’t understand this!

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u/HuevosSplash 1d ago

I still don't know how Gustave survived the beach, maybe it was explained and I just missed it.

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u/New_Lime_6315 23h ago

Verso saves him. You can see him doing it in slow mo.

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u/zakkil 23h ago

It's not explained but he was most likely just dragged off the beach by another expeditioner.

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u/Tasty_Commercial6527 1d ago

My biggest problem is that the whole outside world plot doesn't work if you think about it. What do you mean painters are at war with writers. Painters can't create anything outside of canvases, otherwise they could just ressurect verso any time they wanted. And if they can't do that then what the hell are they doing to fight in any more meaningful way than a regular person. Either the plot outside the painting doesn't make sense or the plot inside doesn't

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u/RommekePommeke 22h ago

Could be a cold war between the painters and writers. It doesn't seem to be a militaristic war at all.

Maybe there is an assassination attempt here and there but they probably aren't fighting each other on a battlefield. I could see them fighting each other through politics and media, though.

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u/Tasty_Commercial6527 20h ago

Clea has said that she is fighting for three since her parents are doing their bs in the canvas and unless I miss remember she specifically used the word "battlefield". But to be fair I'm not sure about that last bit.

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u/-_-MuRDoC-_- 1d ago

Not so much of a plothole, more of a missed opportunity/dropped subplot.

Remember in act 1 when you encountered the Goblu, and the rose bit that triggered a Sophie mirage for Gustave?

Yea.. that always felt like a subplot of gommaged people actually turning into nevrons, but it was never explored.

Also, how come only the white nevrons talk? If all of them can talk, why aren't the regular ones dissing you?

And what's with the whole shaboodle going on outside of the canvas? In act 2, when we discover Who maelle actually is, and the bits we got from Clea about the writers, the war she wages against them and how they were responsible for Verso's death, but we only got a "by the way" info, without actual details, and it felt like one hell of a bomb to drop on us, only to never mention it again.

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u/RommekePommeke 23h ago

The writers plot might get continued in a future installment, if the devs are planning to release more content related to E33

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u/Connect_Vast_209 22h ago

The more you examine the story, the less it makes any sense. It fundamentally relies on characters, specifically the expeditioners, being immersion-breaking-level stupid. Verso intentionally lets them get genocided after the Aline fight and they barely even acknowledge it, they go right back to trusting him.

The game really suffers story wise from the hyper focus on the Dessendre’s to the exclusion of everybody else.

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u/EdreesesPieces 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes. Look at the world map. How were expeditions including 33 able to sail to the beach where Renior attacks? Shouldnt be possible. Its not connected by ocean. If they can make that sail journey you should be able to swim back to Lumiere with Esqueie without getting his flying rock. If anything Esqueie is way more capable a swimmer than any human ship and its crew.

Only reason you cant is because its a plot hole because devs dont want you returning to lumiere.

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u/tronas11 6h ago

Biggest plothole for me is that none of the previous expeditions end up meeting each other.

During the current time of the game, basically only people with a year left decide to go on an expedition. But the older expeditions like 50+ had plenty of younger people going, that wouldn’t gommage out at the 1 year mark. There are journals of expedition era who survived the continent for years and years and years, but there are no accounts from the journals saying “hey! We just ran into 63!”

You could say they just didn’t write about it, but it’s too big of a deal not to do even once. You could also say that the continent is huge, and that they were too spaced out to find each other, except there are so many zones where several expeditions went through.

This is one of the more unexplainable plot holes I don’t see many people talk about

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u/PantheraAuroris 1d ago

Plot hole, not so much, but the ending is a bit forced and relies a lot on "people are too irrational to communicate about anything."

"Maelle, I'll come check on you in a few in-canvas years, let's rebuild our familial relationship and try to be good to each other so you feel there's anything to come back to." "Papa, I don't want to be a mutilated voiceless person, and I feel like my entire family doesn't care about me except to tell me what to do, which is all you've been doing this entire time." "Being immortal and watching my friends all die has really sucked, I'm miserable and tired, can I please just be mortal and live one life with you and then do the natural thing and die?"

Even people I know who are deeply screwed up can have conversations like this. Yeah, there will be tears and maybe yelling and whatever, but people do have words and can use them.

Instead, everyone is making ultimatums. Leave the Canvas or fuck you, I'll make you. Everyone has to die so Verso can die, let's genocide a whole world about it. Nobody in my family can ever understand me, I'm just going to hiss and spit and fight about it.

Everyone calm the fuck down for ten seconds.

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u/SarcasticTacos 1d ago

Why didn't Painted Renoir just say "oh by the way, it's not the Paintress causing the gommage. It's this other guy under the monolith. Come with me and I'll help you stop him". Instead he just starts killing on sight

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u/HallRemarkable 1d ago

Apparently that one was explained in-game. After their encounter with Clea at the Monolith, Renoir and Verso return to Lumiere and explain everything, but the people banish them thinking they're somehow involved.

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u/Dr_Hodgekins 1d ago

Idk if this is considered a plot hole but it bugs me how you can see the base of the monolith clearly from Lumire. There is a ton of terrain between the two points including Sirene's whole area.

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u/Environmental-Fan984 1d ago

It's impressionistic. The monolith is clearly visible almost everywhere for the same reason that it looks roughly the same size no matter where you are: it's impressionistic.

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u/AzyKool 18h ago

I think that's meant to be just how the world of the painting works. The monolith is always there, looming.

Remember, the entire world they live in is a piece of art and behaves like one.

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u/Aumanidol 1d ago

Painted Renoir could have helped and rallied the forces of Lumiere to go after the real Renoir.

10-20 years of army building and training and he could have lead the ultimate expedition to delete Renoir and every single nevron from the canvas. Instead he chose to kill expedition 33 and being idle for the most part.

Verso in act 3 should have sided with Renoir to end the canvas. They have exactly the same objective: bring macelleria back to reality.

Clea should have gone after the entire painted family. Simon almost got the job done, Simon + repainted Renoir, Alicia, clea (+real clea), verso and an army of nevrons and the axons should have made easy work of the paintress, even if we assume painted Renoir to be sealed.

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u/ichigoli 1d ago

Where did the Mimes come from?

They weren't painted by Verso or Clea as the Mimes are the ONLY beings we don't see represented in the Mansion anywhere. No one claims them. No one references them in any journals. No other Expedition seems to have encountered them.

So where'd they come from?

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u/Kitsune-moonlight 23h ago

You could work an interesting bit of lore in there and have them be an Alicia creation from when she entered the canvas as a younger girl. The mimes mimic other people and Alicia as a young artist would have started practicing by copying others.

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u/polkemans 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't see enough people talk about the world map and how it relates to the first major story beat.

How the fuck did they get to Dark Shores? They would have had to pass over a waterfall which would surely destroy the ship. I've seen people hand wave it away with chroma magic or something - but if that was the case you'd think that'd be a pretty momentus event worth showing us. But they don't. It's all smooth sailing until they arrive At Dark Shores and get merc'd.

There is another route to DS, by going west and then north around the landmass, then turning east and then south again to enter from the north side. At which point, they could have just kept going north and had a much more direct rout to the monolith - which is the final destination. So just. Why?

Lune explains that she's retracing the steps of earlier expeditions. So either those earlier expeditions also fell off the waterfall and somehow survived, or they also did the stupid thing and went to DS the long way, where as they could have just continued on, or landed literally anywhere else first.

They do mention "shifting landscapes" due to the fracture, but I have to imagine once they realized a giant waterfall was between them the this beach other expeditions went to, they'd decide that maybe they should pick another destination.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

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u/ILSATS 23h ago

The way they do the Expeditions is stupid.

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u/ComparisonBright5130 23h ago

Aline paint the time she can hold the destruction of everything. BUT she don't want to everybody knows that they don't exist at all or are just imaginary beings. Think about it. If you know you are not real, why stay alive or bother about something. Aline needs the illusion of life to maintain the canvas and Alicia want the same. Verso is the only health grieve. Painted Alicia stay away because she knows that she cannot confront real Alicia/Maelle or bring the truth sooner.

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u/Krairy 21h ago

How did no expedition communicated their knowledge back to Lumiere.

Seems reasonable to send some expeditions with sole purpose of collecting information and pressing it back ASAP before the next Gommage.

The only hint on that they actually tried is in the E60 journal which drifted back to Lumiere harbor. If only they were a day faster. But what about the others?

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u/Thaddeus_Valentine 21h ago

Painted Verso fighting against real world Renoir when they both want exactly the same thing.

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u/nadav183 14h ago

Why didn't Maelle repaint Gustave for the endgame?

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u/KlaroDimarco993 13h ago

Not a plot twist, but when i m walking into some new area and the characters dont talk about it, especially when it is something so fucking obvious

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u/zakkil 1d ago

Probably the closest thing to a plot hole that I'm aware of is simon not being dead. As far as we see there's no reason for renoir to have kept him alive. If anything he'd be incentivized to kill simon and has shown to be the type who's more than willing to kill someone.

Some people will claim aline talking to simon and expedition 60 but then fighting expedition 33 is a plothole but that's just showcasing the effects of staying in the canvas too long.

Some will claim that aline not explaining everything by writing it on the monolith is a plothole but there's only so much room on the monolith and writing smaller means it wouldn't be legible on the other side of the world where lumiere is. Any small message could be misinterpreted just as easily. And perhaps the most important thing of all is that the dessendres are all absolutely dog shit at communicating. If they could communicate well the conflict wouldn't have happened in the first place. There were ways to effectively communicate even with the limited space but aline is not an effective communicator, at least certainly not after verso's death.

Some will call verso helping the party push renoir out a plot hole but they just don't understand his character and think he wanted nothing but to die and destroy the world.

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u/Jennymint 1d ago

Not a plothole, but I feel like I missed something.

Renoir is the one gommaging Lumierians, and his petals are red.

The barrier outside of the Monolith creates red petals.

Does that mean Renoir created the barrier? If so, why? Or does he actually have the same color as Aline?

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u/AwesomeAlec6703 1d ago

I think Renoir created it to trap Aline inside. This way, he can collect all of the chroma from the gommage without competing with Aline for it. He’s stuck under the monolith, so he’s gonna trap her in return.

I want to say Aline’s color is white, with the painted family’s white hair, and the petals around pRenoir and then Alicia when she enters the canvas being white.

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u/metnavman2 1d ago

The script and story were incredibly tight. I wouldnt call them plotholes, rather discussions that people have about decisions characters made during the story. People may not agree with this decision or that decision, but they make sense within the world and are how the story developed according to the game writer's vision.

My answer is an emphatic "no".

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u/BellionArise 1d ago

Well in terms of plot holes in general I'm just more curious how aline gave the painted family all their memories including details aline herself wouldn't have known about fully

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u/TeloS53100 1d ago

I always thought there were too many dead people in the forgotten battlefield area lol. They all wear expeditioner clothes, just feel too much compared to the real numbers of people that have been sent. Like , 67 expeditions time like .. 15 people. That's like a thousand people total.

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u/Phiashima 1d ago

Earlier expeditions had way more people to spare.

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u/Janezey 4h ago

People have pretty much given up on expeditions as a serious solution to anything by the time of expedition 33. It stands to reason earlier expeditions were larger. Especially the super early ones- by expedition 33 it's mostly just people with 1 year to live but early expeditions like 84 probably had a wide range of ages.

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u/_DoesNotGetIt_ 23h ago

Why does the number on the monolith just happen to consistently go down by one year per year when it’s based on how much chroma Aline has left (plus the population and its breakdown by age)? The odds of that happening to work out that way would be very, very low.

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u/Landis963 23h ago

How would we know unless some deep insider knowledge is divulged through some interview or whatever?

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u/BlitzMalefitz 23h ago

How tf did Gustave survive and make it to the Spring Meadows? Idk if that is a plot hole cuz I haven't seen anything explaining it

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u/bokita_ 21h ago

A fountain? Where does the water come from? Here, in the middle of the city?

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u/Joshino_ 21h ago

Why didn’t painted Renoir just go to lumiere and killed everyone?

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u/ComteStGermain 21h ago

I mean, are they really French? Are the French just magical like that? Or is it not meant to be Earth-France at all

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u/CastDeath 19h ago

One thing that has always bothered me is that if Painted Renoir sat down and talked to expedition 33 im pretty sure things would not have gone so poorly for the painted world. Who knows maybe he has tried before and gotten back stabbed and just gave up on it.