When Does a Fake World become Real Part 2

Major Spoilers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

What is that makes us real?

If you could prove God exists and can make another world just as easily, does anything we do matter?

What determines if our lives matter or not?

People much smarter and with much more time on their hands than me have spent millennia asking these questions. I…probably don’t have a real answer for them if I’m being honest. But we’re going to press on regardless. Last week I took a look at Persona 5 Royal and the fake world built by Takuto Maruki, and what it is about that world that doesn’t work. He builds a utopia without any pain, only to be confronted by those who have realized that pain is a necessary part of life. This week, we’ll be diving into a different type of fake world: Verso’s Canvas from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

The spoiler warning is already there BUT I will reiterate here that there are major spoilers for Expedition 33 ahead. Ok? Ok.

At the end of Act 2 of Expedition 33 we learn that the world we have been inhabiting up until this point is not in fact a world on its own, but a canvas painted by Verso. Not the Verso we have been playing as through Act 2, but the real Verso Dessendre, an actual human who lived in actual Paris who had died saving his sister Alicia from a fire. The Verso we have been playing as is instead a living painting, created by real Verso’s mom Aline, who up until this point we have only known as the terrifying Paintress. Maelle, the red-headed teenager we have been traveling with, remembers that she is actually Alicia, the sister who had been saved by real Verso. The entire world is turned on its head as it turns out we have been operating in a magical painting as opposed to the actual world, and that the real world that we the player know is in fact out there.

At the end of Act 3 we are then given a choice. Do we allow Painted Verso to destroy the canvas and all that exists in it, including party members Lune and Sciel, so as to force Alicia/Maelle to confront her grief in the real world? Or do we get Alicia/Maelle to preserve the canvas in perpetuity, allowing her to live out the rest of her life in the painted fantasy? It’s a weighty choice at the end of an incredible game, and one that I have seen some very…divided responses on. For what it’s worth, while I don’t necessarily believe that there is a “good” ending to the game, I do believe that Verso’s ending (Destroying the canvas) is the correct ending for reasons I will get into next week. Yet, even though I believe his ending to be the correct choice, it is not because I don’t believe the canvas world to be real. In fact, I believe that the world of the canvas is very very real indeed.

The world of the canvas is not a utopia. People live, die, suffer, are happy, and for the most part live lives very similar to those of humans out in the real world. At no point prior to the reveal are you truly given reason to believe that the world you are in is any more a creation than any other video game’s world would be. It is fantastical and wonderful, sure, but it is not perfect. Even the Gestrals, as wondrous and humorous as they are, have a level of reality to them, existing in a society with conflict and somewhat complex relationships. It is a human creation, and like any human creation, it is flawed, and that makes it feel real to us in a way that perfection never can.

But then, why does it matter that it is real? Why is this even a question worth asking? Obviously it feeling real provides heightened stakes to the choice at the end, but is there any deeper level to it? (Spoilers: yes, this article continues, of course there’s more).

To answer the question of why the reality of the canvas matters, we must instead question: is any art real? Are the characters we see in books and movies real? Are people like Dr. Robbie from The Pitt or Nyota Uhura from Star Trek real? On the one hand, of course they aren’t. These are fictional characters who follow a prescribed script, not real thinking, breathing people. But on the other hand they certainly feel real and they often have a profound effect on us. They create real impacts, things that are seen all over the world. Martin Luther King Jr. even wrote to Nichelle Nichols to encourage her to continue playing Uhura because of the positive impact of seeing a black woman in charge on the tv screen. Sure they aren’t real, but just like the canvas, they are the creation of humans and they reflect the humanity of their creators.

Verso’s canvas is suffused with humanity. We see Verso’s childish innocence and love in the Gestrals, Esquie, Monoco, and the Grandis. We see Aline’s grief in the humanity of Lune, Sciel, and Gustave, in the preservation of Lumiere even as Renoir attempts to destroy it. We see Renoir’s anger and sorrow in the Axons, great beasts and reflections of his family as he fights to reclaim it. We see Clea’s creativity and reason in the many Nevrons that populate the land, fantastical and bizarre creatures that come in a myriad of shapes and sizes. And we see Alicia herself as a person in this canvas through Maelle, a real human among a sea of painted ones.

 By the time we are playing the game, Verso’s Canvas is not just his but a canvas of the Dessendre family writ large, a distillation of their love, grief, and the emotions they have felt since the death of the real Verso. It is, in a way, more real than real. It is the pure expression of emotion, of humanity, without any of the masks and illusions we hide ourselves away in out here in the world. It is the very soul of a family in mourning, containing both the memories of joy they once held and the grief they bear now. It is real not only within the world, but in a way, it is real to us playing the game as well.

All of these fake worlds and characters that we experience in our games, movies, books, tv shows, paintings, whatever art form you choose, they are real. Despite their fictional nature, and sometimes indeed because of their fictional nature, they are able to affect us in real and lasting ways, even if they are not truly “real” in a literal sense. We create art to bare our soul to the world, to reveal parts of us that we don’t know how to show otherwise, from the smallest AO3 smut fic to the greatest cinematic masterpiece. Just because I can’t reach out and touch Smoke and Stack in Sinners doesn’t mean their story isn’t real. It may not be what has literally happened in the world, but it exists as a reflection of people, and so as a fragment of reality. 

Within the world of Expedition 33 I would argue that Verso’s canvas is absolutely a real world on par with the actual real world, and if the situation at the end of the game was actually happening, I would potentially feel differently about the ending. But also, it is real because all art is real. Art, no matter how small or rote it may feel, contains the essence of human soul and thought. Art matters, the soul matters, and it will always be real, even as it portrays things that don’t necessarily exist. Art is humanity and humanity is art, and there is no substitute that a machine can ever make that will come close to the real thing. Fuck Gen AI.

So now we have the question of these last two articles: When does a fake world become real? My answer: when it shows us something that we know to be true, even if it uses untruths to accomplish it. 

Maruki’s illusory reality cannot be real because it hides away the imperfections and flaws of humanity to show an idealized form that is pleasant but ultimately shallow. Persona 5 needs us to understand that life is a series of successes and losses, and that only in experiencing both can we truly be human. His fake world can never be real, because it seeks to hide humanity, rather than embrace it.

Verso’s Canvas is almost more real than reality itself. It is pure human emotion and psyche writ large through art, a distillation of the many artists who have contributed to it by the end of the game. It is the life of the Dessendre family encapsulated, and it shows us that even if something is a fictional creation, it can be real in every sense that matters. Expedition 33 asks us to recognize that the art we make does matter, and that it is in the human act of creation that our creations become real.