(Big Expedition 33 spoilers ahead, skip if you think you might ever want to play the game at some point!!)
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So, I know everyone and their mother has a different opinion on the endings for Expedition 33, but here are some of my thoughts:
I really love how there are pros and cons to each ending and that this game is FILLED with gray areas, and it’s sparked so many different thoughts and discussions.
Verso’s ending is so intriguing to me. I’ve seen some people (mostly on reddit. Reddit seems to have a HUGE hate boner for Verso) say you're committing genocide in that route, but… no? Everyone in the canvas, except for your party, has already been erased by Renoir. You aren’t killing off humanity* in the canvas; you’re erasing the opportunity for them to be repainted, which is something entirely different.
My theory is, if you are repainting someone who has been gommaged, they can only come back as the same person if you knew them completely, inside and out. Compare Maelle’s paintings of Lune and Sciel vs the reanimated shades of Expedition 33: Lune and Sciel are fully realized versions of themselves (one could argue if they ARE technically the same people they were before being gommaged, but I like to think they are.** Kind of a Theseus's ship situation), but the members of the expedition are ghostly apparitions who are “alive” to fulfill one purpose.
Anyway, I really like how much of the game is left to interpretation, because it leads to so much fun discussion and lots of theorizing. Not everything needs to be wrapped up in a nice bow!
*Though, what about the Gestrals and Grandis and even the Nevrons (we’ve seen that some Nevrons have wills of their own, beyond what they were painted to be)? There's another gray area to consider.
** On a similar note, is the Maelle we knew at the beginning of the game the same as post-Act-2 Alicia-Maelle? I think she is a third person entirely. Maelle sans-Alicia is gone, and it breaks my heart, but so is Alicia sans-Maelle. They are inextricably intertwined, both within the Canvas and without.
