#brain blast

Hypothesis: The manor fire takes place on Alicia's birthday

So I've been rewatching others play Clair Obscur since I finished (and nearly 100%'d) the game over a month ago, now with full context on everything. One thing that's REALLY grabbed my interest is Maelle's nightmares.

Some of the things shown are semi-obvious, especially if you listen to all of the expedition journals throughout the game. Like Verso killing expeditioners and then Julie, the fire, Alicia and Renoir. But other parts aren't so obvious. One of these parts is in the second nightmare.

Maelle (potentially Alicia) is seen holding a plate with a cake slice on it with a melting Eifel tower candle, perhaps the warped Lumiere tower (yet another theory to explore on reality merging with the canvas world).

Pans out to having (I believe) Verso and Clea on her right, and Gustave and Emma on her left (another theory I won't get into right now). Everyone is holding out their hands like they too are holding a plate, perhaps implying they were all a part of something to do with the cake.

The next it shows everyone in front of the monolith with 33 on it, but now only (again I believe) Verso next to her. Everyone but Maelle/Alicia gommages with the 33, including Verso.

But what does it all mean?

Some other crumbs of context that may tie this all into a coherent bundle with a bow on top.

This cake slice is seen throughout the game, the two instances I can think of off the top of my head being at the expedition festival and on top of the fat gestral in the manor basement below the kitchen. These two instances are, in a sense, self-containable, and at first I had written them off. I mean, what festival party send-off wouldn't have cake? The gestral is/was an easter egg to the Portal series, however he IS below the manor kitchen.

This combined with the, at first, seemingly random music track record 'Alicia's Birthday Party'. Nowhere explicitly in the game is Alicia or Maelle and it being her birthday EVER brought up. So why is there a whole track about it?

We found out in Verso's ending that he died on the 33rd of December. Many have thought this means even the supposed real world is fake, but I think the FRENCH writers simply extended the history of the French Republic Calendar (look it up) to still be in use in 1905 for the sake of the story. BUT, regardless of this or not, we know 33 to be a significant number in relation to Verso's death.

In the nightmare, Maelle/Alicia and Verso are standing in front of the monolith with 33 on it, with Verso disappearing as the 33 does, yet Maelle/Alicia remains.

The cake slice on the plate resembles a birthday cake slice, complete with a lit candle. There is cut up cake in multiple places in the canvas world, one of which is below the manor kitchen. There's a record called 'Alicia's Birthday Party'.

I think this all somehow ties into the manor fire happening during Alicia's birthday party at the manor on the 33rd of December. Whether the lit candle is somehow the cause of the fire is to be determined/debated, but it could potentially explain how the fire was 'Alicia's fault', whether because the fire was from her birthday party or The Writers were there at the party and got Alicia alone somehow?

TLDR: I think it was Alicia's birthday the night of the fire because of a scene in Maelle's second nightmare, coupled with multiple instances of cake slices in the game and a track called 'Alicia's Birthday Party' for seemingly no reason.