Proud to share that our psychotherapist Katayon Qahir was recently featured in Authority Magazine talking about something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention — healing from psychological abuse.

Katayon works with adults recovering from toxic relationships, chronic stress, and trauma. She offers virtual sessions across Ontario.

Link to the full interview in bio — it’s worth the read.

#ToxicRelationships #PsychologicalAbuse #NarcissisticAbuse #HealingFromAbuse #TraumaTherapy

Narcissistic abuse is rarely loud or obvious; it often looks like confusion, self doubt, walking on eggshells, and slowly losing trust in your own reality.

Clients often tell me the hardest part is not what happened, but how long it took to realize something was wrong.

If this resonates, notice what feels familiar in your body right now and remind yourself that clarity is a form of healing, not betrayal.

#NarcissisticAbuse #RelationshipTrauma #EmotionalAbuseAwareness #HealingFromAbuse

The Fury I Carried: Ethan Harper’s Story

5,834 words, 31 minutes read time.

Ethan Harper sat on the edge of his porch, the late afternoon sun burning low across the field behind his house. At fifty-five, he had learned that time has a way of loosening memories, sometimes revealing them in fragments, sometimes hiding them altogether. He had spent decades running from the storms in his head, from the anger that bubbled up at the slightest insult or perceived slight. But now, in the quiet that only comes when most of the world had turned away, he could hear it all—faint echoes of fists, belts, harsh words, and betrayed trust.

He remembered the fights with his older brother, memories he had buried so deep they had almost faded entirely. Tommy had been two years older, stronger, and cruel in ways that Ethan could never fully name as a boy. He remembered the time Tommy had pulled a knife, his own little hand trembling as he tried to back away, and the way fear had carved itself into his chest like a permanent mark. Their father had never intervened, not in that moment and not in the countless times Tommy had pushed Ethan around. Ethan had learned early on that survival meant keeping quiet, swallowing the sharp edges of his anger, and smiling when it was safest to do so.

It wasn’t just the private moments of fear that shaped him. There were times when they would play softball, basketball, or football with other children in the neighborhood, and Tommy would build himself up as the star player by tearing Ethan down. A missed catch, an airball, a strikeout—Tommy made sure everyone saw it, punctuating each mistake with sarcasm or a sharp remark that left Ethan flushed and small. Tommy was not exceptional at these games; in fact, Ethan often outperformed him when he tried. But that was the problem: Ethan’s skill threatened to shift attention away from Tommy, and he could not tolerate it. So he undermined Ethan at every opportunity, publicly humiliating him to reclaim the spotlight.

Ethan carried the lesson with him like a silent contract: never excel too openly, never make others feel overshadowed, and always hide the frustration that bubbled up inside. He learned to mask his skill, to soften his edges, and to accept that recognition often came at the price of ridicule. Every ball missed under Tommy’s watchful eye, every sneer aimed at him in front of the neighborhood kids, was another brick in the wall of restraint and quiet fury he would carry into adulthood.

And then there were the flashes he had long buried, the moments his mind had tried to forget. One of them came back to him unexpectedly at a flea market decades later. He had been scanning a vendor’s booth, the smell of old books and brass trinkets thick in the air, when he spotted it—a red glass ashtray, the exact shape and color of one that had sat on the living room table when he was ten. Something in him tightened. He remembered then, suddenly, the day it had shattered across his head, heavy and brutal, thrown by his mother during one of her fights with his father. He had not seen it coming, had not known how to dodge it, and even though the glass had bruised and cut him, leaving a scar he still carried, his mind had tucked the memory away, as if it were too sharp, too unfair, too much to bear. The ashtray at the flea market wasn’t the one that had hit him—that one was still somewhere at his parents’ house—but the sight of it brought back a clarity that was both painful and necessary.

And yet, despite the beatings, the whippings, the relentless pressure to perform, there had always been the family mantra: “We’re broke. We can’t afford that.” Yet Ethan remembered the trucks—dump trucks, dozers, backhoes—and even the lowboy trailer parked out back. He remembered the horse they owned for a season, the new cars that seemed to arrive without warning, and the endless parade of boats, hunting gear, and camping equipment that lined the garage and shed. His father had been a carpenter, proud of his trade, and the shop had gleamed with the newest, best tools money could buy: precision saws, routers, drills, chisels, clamps, levels, the kind of equipment that made a craftsman’s work sing. On weekends, Ethan had watched his father polishing shotguns, checking ammo, and tinkering with reloading equipment, preparing for hunting trips that would last days. The house smelled of sawdust, gun oil, and leather, a scent that stayed with him into adulthood.

Ethan had worked his entire young life, scraping up cash for school, for his own living expenses, only to watch the money vanish, swallowed by family claims of urgent “needs” or “emergencies.” College loans he had taken in good faith had been co-opted, a car he barely could afford had been purchased under pressure, leaving him to shoulder debt he hadn’t truly agreed to. Even before college, the pattern had been set. During high school, he spent his summers working construction alongside his father, learning the trade but also learning the rules of control and endurance in the harshest ways. On one job, his father refused to allow the lumber yard to deliver a load of shingles to the roof of a two-story house, forcing Ethan to carry each ninety-pound bundle up a rickety ladder, despite knowing how much Ethan struggled with heights. His heart would pound, legs shaking with every step, and his father would bark instructions from below, impatient and unyielding.

And the money—any cash he earned was never truly his. On Fridays, after a week of grueling labor under the hot sun and the constant weight of expectation, he would finally hold his paycheck in his hands, tasting the small victory of independence. By Saturday, it was gone—borrowed back by his father for some sudden “emergency,” never returned, never explained, as if Ethan’s effort and autonomy were meaningless. He learned early on that no matter how hard he worked, no matter how carefully he tried to hold onto what was his, control would be wrested away, and anger, no matter how justified, was never safe to show. The lesson was brutal, physical, and financial all at once: survival meant obedience, endurance, and quiet resignation, even when it felt like life itself was conspiring against him.

He had enlisted in the Army shortly after high school, not out of patriotism alone, but out of desperation. He signed a four‑year commitment because four years sounded like distance, like a clean break, like a stretch of time long enough to finally become someone his family could no longer reach or control. The Army promised structure, clarity, and rules that made sense. It promised that effort mattered, that rank was earned, and that a man’s worth was measured by what he could carry and how well he carried it. For the first time in his life, the expectations were written down, and no one could move the goalposts on a whim.

Training was brutal, but it was honest. Pain came with purpose. Yelling had a reason. When he failed, he knew why, and when he succeeded, it was visible. He slept harder than he ever had, ate like his body finally needed fuel, and felt something close to calm settle into his bones. For the first time, anger had a direction. It wasn’t explosive; it was contained. Useful.

Then, while he was still in training, the country declared war.

Everything shifted overnight. The tone changed. The urgency sharpened. Jokes dried up. Drills took on a harder edge, and names of places he had only seen on maps were suddenly spoken with gravity. Within a year, he was sent to the war zone. He didn’t panic. He didn’t hesitate. In fact, part of him felt steadier than he ever had. There was a clarity in knowing where he was supposed to be and what was expected of him. He adapted quickly. He learned routines, read people, watched the ground, and listened more than he spoke. He would have signed up for another tour without hesitation. For all its dangers, the war zone felt less chaotic than home had ever been.

Five months into a six‑month tour, everything collapsed.

One day he was there, counting time in weeks, thinking about reenlistment and the future. He had been assigned to his unit in the war zone for five months, and the more he learned, the more he felt himself fitting into a rhythm he had never known at home—a rhythm that made him feel capable, disciplined, even alive. For the first time, he could see a path forward. When his initial six-month tour ended, he had every intention of signing up for a second. He wanted to stay. He wanted to finish what he had started. The idea of coming home now, leaving the work unfinished, felt like betrayal—not just to the Army, not just to the country, but to himself.

Then it happened.

He was pulled aside by a sergeant who didn’t make eye contact. The words came slowly, almost apologetically, though Ethan could hear no real apology in the tone. His father had contacted his commanding officer. There had been an “emergency.” Medical issues. Something about an accident while building a house. Ethan never got the details straight from the source. He never saw the call. He never saw the paperwork. All he knew was that the story was enough to pull him out, to cut short the tour that he had poured himself into.

The anger came first—hot, uncontrollable. His chest felt tight, his fists clenched before he even realized what was happening. He wanted to fight, to yell, to tell the world that no one, not even his father, could take this from him. But he had learned too young that there were limits he could not cross, and that resistance often came at a price far too high.

So he went home.

The shame settled in like a second uniform, stitched tight around his shoulders. He had wanted to prove himself in uniform, to show the discipline, the courage, the loyalty he had always felt he needed to prove. And now that chance was gone, stolen by the same family that had belittled him, manipulated him, and drained him of agency for as long as he could remember. He could not reenlist for a second tour. Not now. Not ever.

When he tried to articulate it to himself, to rationalize it, all he could feel was betrayal. Betrayal that twisted into anger that had nowhere to go. He had survived the heat of a war zone, the monotony of training, the constant tension of life and death, and yet, in the end, the hand that stole his purpose came from home. His father had done what no enemy in a foreign land could: taken away the one thing Ethan had chosen for himself, leaving him hollow, furious, and confused.

He left the war zone with unfinished business and a knot in his chest that never fully loosened. Other men stayed. Others rotated forward. He went home.

The shame came quietly at first. No one accused him directly, but he felt it anyway. He had been there five months. Five out of six. Close enough to taste completion, close enough to feel like it mattered. He told himself it wasn’t his choice, but that didn’t stop the humiliation from settling in. He had wanted to stay. He would have stayed. He would have reenlisted. But that chance was gone, stolen in the same way so many other decisions had been quietly taken from him.

Back in the States, after leave, he returned to his command, trying to pick up the thread of his life where it had been cut. But home had a way of closing in. The family pressure started immediately. Obligations. Expectations. Guilt dressed up as responsibility. He was told how much they needed him, how much he owed them, how everything would fall apart without his help. It was the same voice he’d grown up with, only louder now, reinforced by the idea that he was no longer deployed, no longer “needed” elsewhere.

The Army had given him structure. Home dismantled it piece by piece.

The pressure didn’t come as one dramatic confrontation. It came in phone calls, in comments, in constant reminders that family came first, that he was selfish for wanting anything else, that he couldn’t just disappear into a uniform and pretend he didn’t belong to them. Slowly, the walls closed in. Sleep became shallow. Anger flared without warning. The discipline he had built began to crack under the weight of old patterns he thought he had escaped.

At some point, the thoughts turned dark. Not loud at first. Just quiet questions. What if he stopped fighting? What if he didn’t wake up? What if the only way to end the pressure was to disappear entirely? He didn’t tell anyone how bad it got. Men like him weren’t supposed to say those things out loud. He told himself it was temporary, that he just needed rest, that he could muscle through it like everything else.

But the weight didn’t lift.

Eventually, it was noticed. Not the family pressure—that remained invisible—but the strain it caused. The Army didn’t see a man being pulled apart by a lifetime of control and obligation. It saw a soldier no longer fit to carry the load. He was released from service, not with ceremony, but with paperwork. Another ending he hadn’t chosen. Another door closed quietly behind him.

He left the Army with anger he didn’t know how to name and a sense that something vital had been taken from him before he could decide who he was meant to be. The discipline remained, but the purpose was gone. And the fury that followed him into civilian life was no longer contained or useful. It was raw, directionless, and hungry, and it would shape the decades that followed in ways he wouldn’t understand until much later.

The anger followed him everywhere. At work, he snapped at colleagues over minor mistakes. At home, he lashed out over trivial inconveniences. It didn’t matter whether the offense was real or imagined; his body, trained for fight or flight, recognized disrespect and fear with equal ferocity. Proverbs 15:1 had been a verse he glanced at in passing: “A gentle answer turns away wrath.” He had read it, nodded, and ignored it, convinced that gentleness was weakness, and weakness could not survive in a world that had taught him from childhood that survival required steel.

He remembered the night he drove home from work, hands gripping the wheel, chest pounding, after yelling at a coworker who had “disrespected” him in a meeting that in hindsight wasn’t even about him. The sky was dark, his headlights slicing through the winter fog, and he replayed the event in his mind over and over, each time justifying his anger, insisting that he had been right, that the world had failed him once again.

And then he remembered another fragment—a smaller, older memory of his brother and father, a single afternoon when he had been twelve. Tommy had cornered him in the barn, fists clenched, eyes wild. Ethan’s heart had hammered in his chest as he tried to back away, remembering the knife. Their father had appeared after what seemed like an eternity and landed a whipping so severe it left bruises not just on his skin but in his mind. And when Ethan had tried to explain the fear, the threat, the knife, he had been told he needed to be tougher, to stop crying. “You’re a boy. You’ll toughen up,” his father had said. Ethan had learned that anger could not protect him; compliance was the only safe path.

Ethan had carried these lessons into adulthood like armor, only to discover they were double-edged. Anger was not protection—it was a prison. He had become a man who could not trust easily, who flinched at authority even as he demanded respect from others, who hid love behind sarcasm and gritted teeth. He had tried therapy once, but words were inadequate for the weight of memories he had never allowed himself to fully feel.

Financial betrayal had reinforced the lesson that family could not be trusted, and that survival meant self-reliance, no matter the cost. He had taken loans for college, believing in his own determination, only to have those funds claimed by family members who insisted they were in dire need. The car, bought under pressure, became a symbol of compromise, a tangible reminder that his agency had been hijacked again and again.

Despite it all, there were moments of reflection, rare glimpses of clarity when Ethan allowed himself to remember without the accompanying rage. He remembered a Sunday morning, years ago, when he sat alone in a small chapel, hands folded tightly in prayer, and finally whispered the words he had never been able to say aloud: “God, I’m tired. I can’t carry it all. Help me.” In that moment, he felt something shift, a softening, a glimmer of understanding that perhaps anger was not the only path to survival, that he could hand over burdens he had carried for decades.

Yet understanding did not erase history. He still remembered the trips to the bank with his father, being told the family was “broke” as he watched checks disappear into accounts he would never control. He remembered the shiny trucks, the dumpers, the backhoes, the lowboy, the horse grazing peacefully in the sun, the spotless workshop brimming with the latest carpentry tools, the hunting rifles, reloading equipment, the boats lined up by the lake, the stacks of camping gear. Each memory was a reminder of manipulation, of deception, and of how a man’s labor could be quietly co-opted. And he still remembered the sharp edge of his brother’s knife, the sting of the belt, the humiliation of public punishment—echoes that had shaped him as much as any lesson, any love, or any discipline ever could.

Ethan realized that much of his anger had been rooted in fear: fear of loss, fear of humiliation, fear of being powerless. That fear had been dressed up as pride, as control, as righteous indignation. He had justified his outbursts countless times, insisting that anyone would do the same, that anyone in his shoes would have snapped. But now, sitting on the porch, he saw the truth: his anger had been misdirected, aimed at the wrong people, even at himself.

He thought about the biblical texts he had ignored for so long. James 1:20: “Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” He had understood those words in college but only now felt their weight. Anger had never delivered justice. It had only fed isolation, fueled regret, and kept him from seeing the people around him with clarity or compassion.

And still, he did not remember everything. Some days he would find himself staring into the fog of the past, grasping for memories that refused to form, events that had been buried so deep that even now they were only half-glimpsed. But he had learned that partial memory could coexist with partial peace. He did not need to recall every moment to begin forgiving, to begin letting go, to begin living.

Ethan took a deep breath and felt the cold wind press against his face. He thought of the men and women he had served with, the colleagues he had yelled at, the friends he had pushed away. He thought of his brother, still alive somewhere, and his father, gone but never truly absent from his consciousness. And he understood something he had never known as a boy: survival was not about dominance, not about proving yourself, not about holding onto every hurt and injustice. Survival was about learning to release what you cannot change, to accept the fractured, messy truth of your past, and to carry forward with whatever fragments of peace you could grasp.

Ethan took a deep breath and felt the cold wind press against his face. He thought of the men and women he had served with, the colleagues he had yelled at, the friends he had pushed away. He thought of his brother, still alive somewhere, and his father, gone but never truly absent from his consciousness. And he understood something he had never known as a boy: survival was not about dominance, not about proving yourself, not about holding onto every hurt and injustice. Survival was about learning to release what you cannot change, to accept the fractured, messy truth of your past, and to carry forward with whatever fragments of peace you could grasp.

The sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the field. Ethan stood slowly, stretching muscles stiff with years of tension. The anger would never vanish entirely, the memories would never be complete, and the questions would never all be answered. He wondered if his brother remembered things the same way—or at all. He wondered what his father would have said if he had ever admitted the truth. He wondered how much of himself had been lost, or if it had been there all along, waiting to be claimed.

For the first time in decades, he felt a fragile sense of calm. He had lived with the fury for so long that letting it go, even partially, felt like stepping into sunlight after a lifetime in the dark. But as the wind swept across the field, he realized that some questions might never be answered. Some memories might never return. And maybe that was how life worked: the answers weren’t as important as the act of continuing forward, carrying both the weight of the past and the sliver of calm that remained.

Author’s Note:

I put off writing this story on anger, irritability, and explosive reactions for as long as I could. This story hits close to home. It draws on the very real experiences that I, and many other men, face—struggles that are often hidden, misunderstood, or dismissed. Anger doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a signal. It’s a flare. It’s a message screaming that something deeper is broken, something stolen, something left unresolved. For Ethan Harper, the wounds of childhood abuse, financial manipulation, and betrayal didn’t stay in the past—they followed him into adulthood, shaped his relationships, his work, and the man he became.

Let’s be honest. Men are taught from the start to swallow our pain—sometimes through words, sometimes at the end of a paddle, a belt, or some unjust, brutal punishment. Don’t cry. Don’t complain. Handle it yourself. Be strong. Endure. Survive. And when that pain comes from the people who are supposed to protect you—your parents, your siblings—it doesn’t just hurt; it breaks something inside you. It leaves a mark. It shapes the anger you carry, the fear you hide, the defensive walls you build around your life. Anger becomes a survival tool, a shield, a weapon, and sometimes the only thing that reminds you you’re still alive.

And it doesn’t stop there. Financial betrayal, manipulation, stolen opportunities—those things sink deeper. When you work your ass off to pay for school, only to watch the money disappear, or when you’re pressured into a debt you didn’t choose, it doesn’t just teach you unfairness—it teaches you mistrust. It teaches you that even when you give everything, it’s never enough. That life, and the people closest to you, will bend it all against you. That betrayal isn’t just a memory—it’s a weight, pressing down on your chest for decades, even when you try to forget.

And then there are the memories your brain refuses to face. The ones that don’t fade so much as get buried. The things that were too big, too painful, too confusing to process when you were young and had no power, no language, no escape. Repressed memories aren’t weakness. They’re survival. They’re your mind saying, You can’t carry this yet. Put it down. We’ll come back for it later. The problem is that “later” always comes. It doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t care if you’re ready.

Sometimes it comes through a smell. Sometimes a sound. Sometimes it’s something small and stupid that shouldn’t matter—but does. That’s how it hit me.

It was Sunday, October 5, 2025, at the Flat Rock Speedway Flea Market. We were already heading out, walking past the last vendor set up along the track, when I saw it sitting there on the table. A left-handed youth bow. Bear Archery. Twenty-five pounds pull. I picked it up without thinking, and the moment it settled into my hand, my chest tightened. Not emotionally at first—physically. Like something inside me had been yanked awake.

My hands knew it before my mind did.

I was ten years old again. Christmas morning. The weight of that bow. The way it felt to draw. The quiet pride of owning something that was mine. Not borrowed. Not shared. Not conditional. It wasn’t just a toy. It was one of the few things in my childhood that felt personal—like it belonged to me, not the family, not the system, not the constant reshuffling of control.

I stood there too long, staring at that bow, confused by the surge of feeling it stirred up. And then the questions started. Slow at first. Then louder. What happened to mine? When did it disappear? Why couldn’t I remember it leaving?

The truth landed heavy and ugly. I was ten when I got that bow. And nine years later—while I was gone, while I was trying to build a life, while I trusted that my things were safe—it was sold. No conversation. No asking. No warning. Just gone. Either my brother or my father decided it was theirs to turn into cash. Like so many other things. Like it had never belonged to me at all.

That realization didn’t come with tears. It came with anger. The old kind. The familiar kind. The kind that burns cold and steady and makes you want to put your fist through something. And then it came with grief. Because it wasn’t just about the bow. It never is. It was about the pattern. The quiet thefts. The way my life had been treated like a resource pool instead of a human being.

Once that door opened, more things started coming back. My first two computers—gone. Unaccounted for. Disappeared somewhere along the way. Sold off. Absorbed. Forgotten by everyone except the kid who built himself around them. It took nearly thirty years for those memories to surface. Thirty years of wondering why anger showed up out of nowhere. Why I overreacted. Why loss—even small loss—felt like betrayal.

There’s another kind of memory loss that’s harder to explain and harder to ignore. It’s not about forgetting a single incident. It’s about entire stretches of life that should be there—and aren’t.

In the late 1970s, my father built a house less than two hundred yards from the trailer we were living in. I would have been around eight years old. Two hundred yards. Close enough to see it every day. Close enough to hear it. Close enough that I should remember what the land looked like before the trees were cut, the road carved up the hill, the culvert installed so the creek could run underneath. I should remember the blasting of rock for the footer, the noise, the dust, the machinery moving in and out.

But I don’t.

What makes that absence impossible to dismiss is this: I remember those exact details from a neighbor’s house that was built a few years later, after we had already moved in. I remember the land before it was cleared. I remember the road cut, the culvert, the blasting. Those memories are intact. Clear. Sharp.

For my own family’s house—nothing.

For decades there was just a blank space where those memories should have been. No images. No sounds. No sense of place. Just absence. And absence like that isn’t neutral. It doesn’t happen by accident. You don’t forget something that close, that constant, that formative, unless something inside you decided it wasn’t safe to hold onto it.

Only recently did a fragment surface. The house with just the second-story walls standing. No roof. No detail. Just a skeletal frame. And even that memory feels fragile, like it could slip away again if I press too hard.

That’s what repressed memory often looks like. Not dramatic flashbacks. Not clean, cinematic scenes. Sometimes it’s missing time. Missing context. Missing pieces of your own history that should be obvious but aren’t. And when those gaps finally show themselves, they don’t bring comfort. They bring unease. Because they force a question you’ve avoided your whole life: What was happening around me that my mind decided I couldn’t afford to remember?

Repressed memories don’t stay buried because they’re harmless. They stay buried because they’re dangerous to a child who has no protection. But they don’t die. They wait. And when they surface, they don’t come back gently. They come back as fear, shame, grief, and rage—all at once. Like stepping back into a storm you thought you’d outrun.

That’s why anger can feel uncontrollable. That’s why men explode decades after the original wound. That’s why the past doesn’t stay in the past. It doesn’t forget you. It finds a way back in, demanding to be acknowledged.

Later, I found a nearly identical bow on eBay. Bought it for next to nothing—shipping cost more than the bow itself. But the money didn’t matter. What mattered was the act. Reclaiming something small but true. Drawing a line through time and saying, I see it now. I remember. And you don’t get to erase this anymore.

That wasn’t nostalgia.
That was recovery.
That was the beginning of taking my life back.

Even Scripture recognizes this. Luke 8:17 says, “For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” Buried memories, pain, sins—they surface. And here’s the thing: it’s not to destroy you. It’s to give you clarity. To give you a chance to see what was stolen, what was silenced, what never got spoken. To reclaim pieces of yourself buried under years of fear, shame, and anger. The light doesn’t destroy; it restores. Even fragments of peace, even moments of clarity, even a glimpse of joy—they are waiting for you, if you’re willing to face what’s under the surface.

Even the Bible tells us that joy is meant to be a source of strength. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” But for men like Ethan, joy is often robbed before it can even root. Abuse, betrayal, manipulation, financial exploitation—they shove it out, replace it with frustration, resentment, and the kind of anger that simmers for decades. And yet, reclaiming joy—real joy, even in fragments—is the first step toward reclaiming life. Even one moment of peace counts. Even a fraction of sunlight after decades of shadow is worth noticing, worth holding onto, worth fighting for.

As you read Ethan’s story, don’t skim the surface and move on. Sit with what’s underneath the anger—the fear, the humiliation, the moments of powerlessness, the opportunities that never came back, the quiet betrayals that were never acknowledged. Ask yourself where anger has shaped your life. Where it has cost you relationships, jobs, peace. Where you learned to swallow pain because speaking up wasn’t safe, or because no one was listening anyway.

Even when memories are repressed, the events still happened. They didn’t disappear just because you can’t access them on demand. They influenced how you learned to react, how you learned to protect yourself, how you learned to survive. They got folded into your personality—your temper, your defensiveness, your need for control, your distance, your self-reliance. You became someone shaped by things you were never allowed to fully understand.

Not every answer will come easily. Some memories may never return in full. Some questions will remain unanswered, no matter how much you want clarity. That’s not failure—that’s reality. That’s what survival actually looks like. But noticing the patterns matters. Seeing how anger shows up, when it shows up, and what it’s guarding underneath is the first step toward taking back control. Not erasing the past. Not pretending it didn’t matter. But finally understanding what you’ve been carrying for decades—and deciding, piece by piece, what you no longer need to carry alone.

If this story scratches something raw inside you, find someone to talk to. A doctor, counselor, therapist—someone you can be honest with, without shame, without judgment. Even a friend, a mentor, a spiritual guide—someone who can hold space for the storm in your head—can help. Processing anger, trauma, and buried pain is not weakness. It’s survival. It’s courage. It’s reclaiming your life, piece by piece, day by day.

This story is about survival—but not the kind that leaves you hardened, broken, and alone. It’s about survival that lets you carry forward, even with scars, even with memories that cut deep. It’s about facing buried pain, claiming fragments of joy, and moving through life on your own terms. Healing is messy. Life is messy. Not every question will be answered. Not every memory will come back. But even fragments of clarity, peace, and understanding are worth claiming—and that fight is worth having.

Call to Action

If this story struck a chord, don’t just scroll on. Join the brotherhood—men learning to build, not borrow, their strength. Subscribe for more stories like this, drop a comment about where you’re growing, or reach out and tell me what you’re working toward. Let’s grow together.

D. Bryan King

Sources

• James 1:19-20 – Bible Gateway
• Proverbs 15:1 – Bible Gateway
• Anger: A Practical Guide – Desiring God
• Learning to Control Your Anger – Crosswalk
• Jesus and Anger – Matthew Henry Commentary
• How Should Christians Handle Anger? – GotQuestions.org
• How to Deal with Anger – Focus on the Family
• Bible Verses About Anger – Bible Study Tools
• Anger Management in the Christian Life – Christianity Today
• 7 Biblical Ways to Overcome Anger – iBelieve
• James 1:19 Commentary – BibleRef
• Proverbs 15:1 Commentary – BibleRef
• Anger in the Bible – Christianity.com
• Proverbs 15 Commentary – Matthew Henry
• Biblical Perspective on Anger – GotQuestions.org

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.

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The way disability is explored in this game provides a positive reinforcement that being disabled doesn’t mean a death sentence. We can thrive if given the support and care necessary for our survival. As the city and culture of Lumerie attests, this care and support is possible and crucial to everyone’s survival.

Lumeire: a city of cooperation

Disability isn’t seen as an impediment in the world of Clair Obscur, at least not at first. The game introduces us to Gustave, who in the opening sequence is presented as a Disabled character. He has only one arm, his other being quite the fancy prosthetic. Dialogue later in the prologue and Act 1 will reveal that the Lumeire society doesn’t seem to harbor negative perceptions of disability. No one thinks less of Gustave for this disability. 

Gustave and Lune both speak to Gustave’s apprentices, who worked together to create a prosthetic for Gustave’s lost arm. 

LUNE: Noco is quite obsessed with your arm. Your apprentices would be extremely proud knowing a gestral loved their work.
GUSTAVE: Yeah, they’d be insanely excited.
LUNE: chuckles Well, they did a great job designing your arm. It was quite a creative assignment you gave them.

Here we see how community comes together to aid those who are disabled. This society does not segregate based on ability, race, or sex from what little we see in the interactions within Lumeire’s inhabitants and the dialogue. Gustave may worry for Maelle, who is much younger being sixteen while the rest of the team is thirty-two, but Lune gently pushes back at him several times.

GUSTAVE: You know what Nevrons are capable of.
LUNE: She’ll be fine.

The people of Lumerie have faith in one another’s abilities, and are willing to challenge one another with projects. That doesn’t negate a sense of responsibility they may feel to protect one another, such as Gustave feels for Maelle. As the guardian of her, he can’t help but want her safe.

GUSTAVE: Maybe you should stay…
MAELLE: What?
GUSTAVE: It’s safer in the village.
MAELLE: And miss the chance to meet Esquie? No way.
GUSTAVE: Maelle…
MAELLE: I’m okay. We stick together.

Despite this conversation, he accepts her agency. This reveals an important aspect of their culture — the agency of individuals within it. Since their lives are cut short by the gommage, they are forced to cooperate and find new ways of being with one another. 

For example, in the prologue, if one goes up to a pile of furniture, Sophia will comment on how those preparing for gommage leave their belongings for others to reuse. Based on conversations Gustave has with various named characters, this culture or reuseability extends to repair and sharing of resources. This is very much a non-capitalist society where people are placed at its center.

This is one reason why disability doesn’t isolate people from society. Lumeire society doesn’t value people for what they can produce or what profits they can earn. It values them for the fact they are alive and cooperate with one another for survival.

In capitalist societies, value depends on profitability. People’s value in turn depends on the ability to market one’s labor to companies to earn a wage. The laborer often does not own the means of production, and so this selling of one’s labor into the job market is based in coercion since society is structured so that needs are only met if money is used to procure them. Wage work often requires long hours for a company, who will maximize profits over a person’s needs. This can and does result in treating workers like machines, as if they are merely cogs in the industrial machines of capital.

Marta Russel writes in Capitalism and Disability: 

“With the advent of capitalism, people were no longer tied to the land, but they were forced to find work that would pay a wage — or starve; and as production became industrialized people’s bodies were increasingly valued for their ability to function like machines. 

 Bosses could push non-disabled workers to produce at ever increasing rates of speed. Factory discipline, time-keeping and production norms broke with the slower, more self-determined and flexible work pattern into which many disabled people had been integrated.’ As work became more rationalized, requiring precise mechanical movements of the body, repeated in quicker succession, impaired persons — the deaf or blind, and those with mobility difficulties — were seen as — and, without job accommodations to meet their impairments, were — less ‘fit’ to do the tasks required of factory workers, and were increasingly excluded from paid employment.”

For those who cannot engage in wage work due to specific disabilities, the value of their personhood drops into negative territory. Often isolated and subjected to cruel invasions of one’s privacy and autonomy, disabled people are treated as disposable. This is due to them not having value in capitalist society.

For much of America’s existence, Disabled people were othered, often locked up in poorly maintained asylums, and died at much faster rates. Through the 1860s through 1940s, the Ugly Laws, as they came to be called, dominated many of the state and federal laws. These laws made it a crime for a person with a “physical or mental deformity” to be out in public places. Since a large percentage of Civil Wars veterans came home disabled, many of these laws targeted them.

As an example of an Ugly Law, San Francisco in 1867 banned: “any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” from the “streets, highways,thoroughfares or public places of the city.” Other cities such as Chicago and Portland and many others soon followed suit.

These city officials claimed distinctions based on class, and furthered the demonization of disabled people with anti-begging ordinances. Thus locking out of public sphere and out of jobs many poor disabled people.

However, despite these ugly laws, the public grew fascinated with what they deemed “deviant bodies” and as early as 1840s, traveling “freak shows” in vaudeville, P.T. Barnum’s Museum in New York, circuses, county fairs, and World fairs. Disabled people were put on display based on “physical and mental deformities.” For some disabled people, this was the only way to survive.

Russell writes: 

“As a result, disabled persons came to be regarded as a social problem and a justification emerged for segregating them out of mainstream life and into a variety of institutions, including workhouses, asylums, prisons, colonies and special schools. Exclusion was further rationalized by Social Darwinists, who used biology to argue that heredity — race and genes — prevailed over the class and economic issues raised by Marx and others. Just as the ‘inferior’ weren’t meant to survive in nature, they were not meant to survive in a competitive society. Legislation, influenced by Social Darwinism and eugenics theory, was enacted in a number of jurisdictions for the involuntary sterilization of disabled people.”

Any benefits crafted to aid them came only after intense organizing across multiple movements in history. Even then, obtaining benefits comes with grueling and invasive means testing that excludes many who desperately needs it.

To illustrate this, let’s examine Social Security benefits. After the World Wars, Social Security was signed into action. However, the law means ‘medically unable to engage in substantial work activity.’ In a way, this disability category became essential to developing an exploitable workforce and controlling the labor supply today. Medicine focused on curing so-called “abnormalities,” and segregated those that couldn’t be cured into the category of ‘disabled.’ This served the will of the state and corporations who sought to push less exploitable workers out of the workforce.

Again Russell describes the process through which Disability came to be defined with United States of America: 

… Consequently, disabled individuals who are currently not in the mainstream workforce, who are collecting disability benefits and who could work if their impairments were accommodated, are not tallied into employers’ costs of doing business. The disability benefit system thus serves as a socially legitimized means by which the capitalist class can avoid hiring or retaining non-standard workers and can ‘morally’ shift the cost of supporting them onto poverty-based government programs — thereby perpetuating their poverty.

Being categorized as ‘disabled’, however, and the subsequent impoverishment that so many face when struggling to survive on disability benefits, serves another class function: it generates a very realistic fear among workers of becoming disabled. At base, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing full control of what they do with the means of production; the American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, labour would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment. American business retains its power over the working-class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe.”

Thus, in this way capitalism crafted the Disabled class in order to exert control over the labor workforce and segregate out people who do not fit the demands of labor. This approach places profits at the center, where people, often, come last in the equation. Disabled benefits is riddled with red tape, which can take multiple appeals and a judge hearing before the person has a chance of being accepted into it. Often Disabled people die before ever receiving a positive decision for benefits, and even if they do access it, much of the time it doesn’t cover all their needs, trapping them in an often deadly cycle of poverty. 

In contrast, Lumeire does not function like a capitalist city. People are central to the city’s focus. Value isn’t reliant on what one can produce for profit but on the fact a person exists. This collaborative and empathetic society functions this way for survival, yes, but the game hints that even prior Fracture, collaboration had been core to these people.

Sandra Daniels writes in Anti-Capitalist Resistance magazine about the Principle of Collective Access: 

“The principle of collective access is not simply about ensuring physical access into buildings or transportation, nor it is just about developing ‘inclusive‘ practice either. Collective access has to be created by recognising the inequalities that exist in power relationships, the fact that diverse groups of people are impacted upon by normative values and oppressive practices differentially. Inclusive practice requires addressing intersectional issues, managing conflicts of need and interest, as well as drawing on the creative imagination and experience of different groups of people.”

Collective access is incorporated into the society of Lumerie. Although it is done imperfectly — improvements are still needed, such as eliminating all steps entirely — the people draw on their creative imagination and the differing needs to build a functional, collective society for survival. 

Gustave, throughout Act 1, shares conversations with Maelle, Sciel, and Lune about life in Lumiere, where we see more examples of how collaborative their society is. For example, after finding the Gestral Village, Sciel and Gustave have a moment back at camp that speaks to the collaboration within their society.

SCIEL: I’m glad you’re here!
GUSTAVE: I would never abandon a fellow member of Aquafarm 3!
SCIEL: Aquafarm 3.
GUSTAVE: Aquafarm 3!
SCIEL: That was so long ago. You and Sophie were inseperable on that project.
GUSTAVE: Yeah, we were.
SCIEL: That was a good project. We fed so many neighborhoods at once. Kind of nostalgic thinking back. We really thought we were making a difference.
GUSTAVE: Hey, we’re still making a difference!

Sciel may take a more pessimistic look as the needs of the city weighed heavy on her, but Gustave refuses to fall into pessimism. He points out the difference they are still making, even on their current Expedition to fight the Paintress and end the Gommage. Per Sciel’s own words, Aquafarm 3 fed many neighborhoods, and their dialogue shows no evidence of placing monetary value on it. Instead, the value is placed on how many were fed by the project. 

This people-centric approach is one of the reasons they survive despite the bleak outlook of their lives, where each year the age one can live up to goes down, thus making their lives ever shorter.

In Lumerie, the environment may be damaged from the Fracture event, but the people found ways to smooth that over and still make areas passable for others. Streets here are made for people rather than vehicles, and the prologue shows this with the design of the streets and magic used to access grappling hooks and ropes. People with Disabilities do exist within the city, but they have mobility aids such as canes or crutches, prosthetics, and pictos to aid them in their day.

The people of Lumeire work together collectively to ensure as many people as possible survive. Considering how often pain and grief will rain down upon them, it makes sense that a collective energy to survive paints itself into the fabric of this city. To see how Lumeire’s collective care impacts the characters, let’s explore more of Gustave’s story.

Gustave and PTSD – Trauma and Shock

 The prologue reveals a world saturated with grief. A yearly gommage wipes from existence anyone over the age of the number the Paintress depicts on her monolith. This has forged a city of collectiveness and cooperation, but it’s also mired the characters in grief, ranging in complacency to acceptance to stubborn refusal.

Gustave is shown to be stubborn and unwilling to accept this is the way things much be. His dialogue with Sophie before the Gommage reveals this stubbornness plays a role in him joining Expedition 33. By the end of the prologue, the player will be subjected to their own shock and grief as the wonderfully written dialogue delves, with only a few lines, deep into the emotional lives of these characters. We connect with Gustave, Maelle, and Sophie right away, so when Sophie’s fate is revealed, it feels like a gut punch.

The game does not let up on the emotional punches. As soon as the expedition ship lands, we are greeted with what many players, myself included, assume is the villain of this story. However, the way the game shows this scene plays directly into how many people, when describing the moments leading up to and after the trauma, describe their sense of time. The seconds feel drawn out until the horrific moment unfolds, and then time speeds up and jumps in disjointed flashes.

The game masterfully shows this by the clang of the villain’s cane against the ground, which causes a blacked out screen briefly. Then we see our heroes leaving the ship. Another clang, and our heroes have noticed the villain. Yet more clangs as he approaches, as the commander Alan calls out to him. This method draws out the incoming confrontation, slowing down the pace considerably but also ramping up that sense of doom.

This man never says a word. He simply looks them over, lifts up his cane, and slices the head off of of Alan, the commander. That’s when the chaos starts, and the battle for survival is thrust on the entire expedition right away. 

This is also a cut-scene. The player can do nothing to stop it from happening. It feels like we too are paralyzed like Gustave is. Where we feel his horror and pain at the massacre. In this way, the game folds us into the emotional shock Gustave feels.

Another element lays in the detail of each part of the cut-scene. For example, Gustave is knocked to the ground hard enough that his ears ring. We hear the ringing with him. He struggles to stay conscious and keep track of Maelle, his ward, but his vision grows hazy and a bright light starts to suffuse the area.

It wasn’t until my second time watching this cut-scene that I glimpsed Maelle’s fate. A shadow of a person leans over where she lays, stunned by a knockout blow, but then Gustave briefly blacks out. We don’t see who or what that figure does beyond kneel at Maelle’s side.

When he stumbles to his feet, Maelle is gone, most of his expedition killed, and those left are being yanked into the mists by Nevrons no one can see. When Gustave ends up confronted by the silent killers, the game fades to white.

This brilliantly directed cut-scene reveals several important narrative clues:

To show point four, we hear, almost as soon as Gustave awakes in a lush canyon, the fast beating of his heart. It sounds as pounding drums in our ears, and he thumps his chest and struggles to slow his breathing. The racing heart and struggle to breathe is a sign of shock and/or panic, both typical symptoms of developing PTSD.

The sequence of us guiding him through the canyon until he reaches the mound of dead expeditioners has a disjointed feel to it. He never says a word, and his behaviors are largely instinctual, especially when faced with a Nevron at one point. He doesn’t stop to use his lumina converter on that Nevron, only stumbles forward as if in a daze. His shock reveals developing PTSD symptoms.

Originally termed ‘shellshock,’ Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was first identified during the World Wars when soldiers exhibited ‘shock’ after brutal battles, where their compatriots were blown to pieces. The symptoms lingered and caused great distress in returning soldiers. Researchers, psychologists, and doctors alike would soon discover that PTSD can form from any traumatic event, not just after a brutal battle.

If left untreated, PTSD can become debilitating and destructive to one’s life and relationships. Often soldiers with severe PTSD struggled to return to society with many ending up in dangerous situations, prisons, asylums, homeless, or worse. Those heavily afflicted with PTSD were deemed unreliable laborers for a capitalist society’s needs, and thus were often shifted into the disabled populations.

PTSD doesn’t just happen to those recovering from war. Any traumatic event can induce this within an individual. If the traumatic event happens over a longer period of time, such as child abuse or trapped in an abusive relationship, the patient is often diagnosed with Complex-PTSD, which is a more intense and debilitating form of PTSD. It’s also requires a slightly different form of treatment since the way memories are stored differs from a traumatic event that happens in a brief amount of time. 

Symptoms of PTSD may include (C-PTSD also includes the following in its list):

• Intrusive memories, nightmares,
• avoidance,
• negative changes in thinking and behavior,
• suicidal thoughts,
• feeling emotionally numb or struggling to feel any positive emotion,
• feeling detached from events or friends or family,
• rapid heartbeats and/or breathing,
• ringing in one’s ears or diminished senses or vice versa where one’s senses feel intensely heightened
• feeling as if in constant danger,
• irritability and/or outbursts of anger,
• being easily startled or frightened,
• trouble concentrating,
• self-destructive behavior.

Because the game took great pains to show us these characters before the traumatic event, we can compare who they were in that prior time to how they react/act after the traumatic act. The changes we see then relate to the effects of surviving a massively traumatic attack.

 This game paints Gustave, our lead in Act 1, as someone in shock, who is developing PTSD based on how his symptoms manifest in his behaviors. Within a cavern filled with dead expeditioners, he finds Catherine, who at the farewell festival had drank wine with Gustave, dead with a Nevron spear in her chest. It proves too much for his shock-saturated mind.

This scene becomes a cut-scene, where the player is once against helpless to intervene. We can only watch in mounting horror as he sits down beside a fallen comrade, manifests his gun, and prepares himself mentally for the deed. Indeed, if left untreated, suicide risk increases exponentially for those suffering from PTSD.

The camera angle stays on Gustave for this scene, but there is a flash of motion on the edge of the right side of the screen. It’s after he closes his eyes that the person speaks.

“If you do that, we both die.”

Lune chooses to situate herself next to him, so that the blast of his gun — considering how his weapons and pictos work — would catch her as well as him. By doing so, she trusts him to choose life because she understands that even if Gustave doesn’t put much stock in his own life right now, he will put stock in keeping other people alive.

Once again, the game shows us who these characters are. Lune will put herself into danger if it means saving another, and Gustave will do all he can to not harm those with which he allies. Two different reactions that speak to the same truth: compassion for another person. Despite their very different reactions to trauma, the cooperative spirit of their home-city invokes compassion for one another. Lune will not let Gustave die, and Gustave, in turn, can’t leave Lune to face Nevrons alone.

The level of detail contained in these cut scenes, the careful staging, the camera shots and angles, all play a role in emphasizing crucial elements of the story and characters’ personalities. Because of the careful thought put into each frame and layer in the game, we are able to explore how the game reckons with disability. 

For Gustave, he has been disabled twice — once when he lost his arm, and again with the traumatic attack that leaves him with PTSD. Despite this, he continues forward the best he can. The game portrays him in a positive light, and that is incredibly unusual for a form of media.

To explore why this is, let’s take a look at another of the disabled characters in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — Alicia Dessendre.

Alicia and the portrayal of disabled characters

When we first meet Alicia Dessendre, it is before the reveal that we are in a painted world of a Canvas. Instead, we see a heavily scarred woman with one eye who appears in Maelle’s nightmares. She wears a porcelian mask over part of her face to cover the scars.

The first time the woman doesn’t speak, only seems fascinated by Maelle. She reaches out as if to touch Maelle. The next encounter is when Alicia speaks to Renoir about the innocence Maelle has due to the nature of Maelle’s existence versus her own. This conversation roots itself in heavy shame from the burdens of her scars and a guilt that is unnamed. 

Often in media, ugliness and physical scars or deformities are used to signal a villain and/or evil. One can see this best highlighted in Wizard of Oz: here Glinda is portrayed as a good witch who is also beautiful, while the evil witch, Elphaba, is shown with green skin, a hunched back, warts on her face, and a crooked nose. The evil witch is the one who imprisons Dorothy and her loyal friends, and ends in her death by melting. This trope also appears in many Disney movies, where the villain has a visible deformity to mark them. Other movies such as James Bond and many Marvel and DC movies use disfigurement and/or mental health as signals that a person is a villain.

One famous scarred figure and disabled villain is Darth Vader from Star Wars, who in Return of the Jedi reveals he can’t live without his suit. So although he knows he will die when he asks Luke to take off the helmet, he insists so he can see Luke with his own eyes instead of through the suit. We see the scars and disfigurement of his face then. Despite this, Darth Vader’s story is one of the few outliers where a villain is seen as redeemable without the need to cure them of their disability. He ultimately dies in the end, regardless, which sends another message — disabled people can’t thrive, and death is their ending.

The UK-based group named Changing Faces has been pushing film industry to change the way people with disfigurements and other disabilites are portrayed on screen. Their campaign, ‘I am not your villain,’ fights to dismantle this trope. As a disabled person in their video shares, “it just sets this stereotype that people who are different are scary and mean.” Another person says concerning society’s view of his disfigurement: “They may make a snap judgement that the person is evil or there’s something negative about them.”

These stereotypes increases the discrimination faced by people with physical differences and/or disabilities, and also impacts their mental and physical health. The need for stories that hold a positive representation of disability is crucial.

In contrast, heroes are painted as non-disabled, athletic types. Amanda Leduc writes in her book Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space concerning heroes in Disney movies: 

“Most importantly, it’s a message that assumes absolute and unrealistic able-bodiedness. No one with glasses. No crutches, no wheelchairs, no visible differences from girl to girl apart from the colour of their eyes and hair. Perfectly symmetrical faces abound. Some of the princesses – Mulan and Merida in particular – are athletes, with the kind of unrealistic body control and power that even able-bodied people often struggle to obtain. The message is that heroism isn’t possible without physical ‘perfection,’ especially for girls.”

These messages paint an excluding picture, and despite millions of disabled people existing within the United States alone, very few games, films, and other media portray disabled people positively and give them a chance at a happy ending.

This exclusion and the use of disfigurement to denote evil has its roots within the capitalist system, which built up the category of disability in order to segregrate the labor into those that can perform labor and those that were disposable. Over time, the disposable caste became associated with badness, ugliness, and valueless.

In the United States, this view of disability extended to those trapped in the slave trade. Moya Bailey and Izetta Autumn Mobley, in their article ‘Work in the Intersections: A Black Feminist Disability Framework,” wrote:

“Race – and specifically Blackness – has been used to mark disability, while disability has inherently ‘Blackened’ those perceived as unfit. Black people were – and continue to be – assumed intellectually disabled precisely because of race.”

As an example of this, after Civil war, insane asylums increased, and patients were segregated based on gender, race, and “physical and mental deformities.” These places were often deadly due to poor medical hygiene and care, and experiments were often conducted on patients. The diagnoses for admission ranged from epilepsy to religious excitement to disease of the brain to fatigue to hysteria.

Those admitted included war veterans, women, Indigenous people, Black people, and anyone the medical establishment deemed ‘physically or mentally deformed.’ They’d often become trapped there, with their right to freedom rescinded. It was incredibly hard to leave the insane asylum, as even arguing for freedom could be deemed a ‘mental deformity.’

For Black patients, medical institutions relied on harmful and inaccurate ‘race theories’ — many of which described Black people as feeling less pain and labeled as intellectually inferior than those deemed ‘white’ by US standards. This resulted in even worse care than white patients, increasing the malnourishment and mortality rates.

Historian Jim Downs wrote: 

“freedom depended upon one’s ability and potential to work… Scores of disabled slaves remained enslaved for decades.”

If not trapped in their prior enslavement, they often ended up incarcerated within insane asylums. Due to the ugly laws enacted during this time period, many who were deemed ‘disabled’ by society could not go out in public. So if they could not labor the way capitalists deemed acceptable, they were labeled as disposable, bad, dirty, and other untrue stereotypes to ‘justify’ the eugenics and incredible harm committed against their bodies and minds.

The fight to end institutionalization, as this is called, continues today. Disabled people of all races, genders, ages, citizenship status, and class have collaborated across movement lines to push for their rights, starting with labor and right to work regulations, such as Section 504, to sweeping laws that prohibited discrimination based on ability such as the ADA, Americans with Disability Act.

Despite these wins, many stories still fell back on the stereotypes that painted disabled people as inferior, bad, dirty, ugly, and/or villainous. Finding stories that showed disabled people’s lives as worthy of life, dignity, liberty, and happiness was relatively rare.

Amanda Leduc writes: 

“If society is used to not seeing disabled people in stories, society becomes used to not seeing disabled people in real life. If society is used to not seeing disabled people in real life, society will continue to build a world that makes it exceedingly difficult for disabled people to participate in said world, thus perpetuating the problem. In this world, there is no need for a wheelchair ramp because hardly anyone who wins an award will need one to get onstage. But what if we took it for granted that anyone, regardless of ability, might be able to achieve, and built our stages and our environments accordingly? 

It is time for us to tell different stories. 

It is time for a different world.”

This is where Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 enters the picture, as the game shows a willingness to tackle disability in a way that rarely falls back on negative presentations of disabled people. Even the societies within the Expedition 33 world originate from a collective care framework rather than a profit framework.

Because Lumerie is not a capitalist society, it’s view of disability falls into the collective care framework. We see this painted again and again in the prologue, various interactions and conversations by characters throughout the game, and in the endings. Thus, we see how Lumerie is a different world telling us a different story from the norm we usually see in video games and other fictional media. Disability is painted into the world with a thoughtfulness that surprises, considering how often Disability is used to denote ‘evil’ or ‘antagonists.’ 

Although this game does fall for the trap Leduc mentions, the athletic prowess of the leads, other non-athletic disabled characters still exist and are painted with care. Such as the man in the prologue with the cane, who asks Gustave and Sophie for a favor for his son. He is able to exist as himself, without great athletic prowess, and still have his concerns be validated and needs taken care of just like any other person.

In turn, the disfigurement trope is turned on its head by Clair Obscur.

Despite how ominous our first encounters with Alicia is in Act 1, she’s never the true villain. In fact, she does not harm the heroes, only shows up to silently witness Maelle from a distance or when she is sleeping. She shows a curiosity and deep sadness toward Maelle’s existence and this connection the two share. In Act 1, the player doesn’t know what that connection could be.

By the end of Act 2, we learn that Alicia is prepared to die and accepts her fate. Earlier she had given Verso a letter, and he waits to read it until the Paintress is defeated and the Expedition 33 returns to Lumeirie triumphant. Here she reveals the painful, genocidal truth of who really implements the gommage, and her acceptance of her likely death. She embodies the tragic character, doomed by the narrative to never be happy. This is the fate of many disabled people in fictional stories. So although Alicia is not a villain, simply an observer of events, she still embodies the typical tragic ending for Disabled people.

Does Clair Obscur change that fate for our Disabled heroes? In the case of Gustave, he thrives in his moments as a hero but subsequently dies protecting his loved ones. But he is also not the only Disabled character in the game that has a chance to be a hero.

Maelle = ‘real world’ Alicia Dessendre and family

In Act 3, we learn that Maelle is actually real world Alicia, who lost her memories when she was painted into the Canvas as a baby by her real world mother. The Alicia we’d encountered thus far is the painted version crafted by her mother. 

In the real world, Alicia is shown as highly isolated, stuck in an abusive environment, and her autonomy largely lost. She is a symbol of how the real world treats Disabled people. They aren’t seen as holding value. Clea says as much during the start of Act 3. Here is the latter end of their dialogue:

ALICIA: (unable to speak due to injury, she tries to sound out the words anyway) I want to help.
CLEA: You will do nothing. You’re too weak to do anything useful. You’d be a liability. The Writers used you against us once before. They won’t hesitate to use you again. And I can’t promise to make the same choice as Verso. Verso traded his life for yours. I both love and hate him for that. The damn fool. Although, if you really want to be useful, then enter the Canvas and help Renoir. I need him back here sooner rather than later. I can fight this war alone, but I’d really rather not. Do you think you can do that?
ALICIA: … (gasps out a yes)
CLEA: Lest you forget, those two are in there because your naivety cost Verso his life.
ALICIA: … 
CLEA: Good. Go to the Canvas when you’re ready. And repaint your throat while you’re in there before you completely forget how to have a conversation.

In this conversation, Clea is revealed to be hyper critical of her family members, and although she does seem to care for them to an extent, she also shows great anger at the situation. However, she specifically blames Alicia for Verso’s death. She first dismisses Alicia as too weak to be useful and calls her a liability. She has no faith in Alicia’s abilities to do anything. She then makes it clear that the Writers used Alicia. However, Clea doesn’t lay the blame squarely at the Writers’ feet. Instead, she includes Alicia in this blame, and makes it clear twice.

This is a form of emotional and verbal abuse through the use of blame, shaming, and devaluing the person with very little sympathy for their needs or agency. Alicia needs support and care, not this verbal stabbing for things she likely had no true control over. Alicia is not the one who starts the fire that kills Verso, and even Clea admits that Alicia was used. Thus, Alicia had no idea what the Writers had planned. For a survivor of a traumatic even that nearly costs them their life, this conversation contributes to that trauma. Clea shows little to no empathy for Alicia in this scene. 

Since she is going away to work against the Writers — possibly her revenge — she needs Alicia out of her hair. So what does Clea do? She offhandedly suggests Alicia go into the Canvas to assist Renoir, but once Alicia does so, Clea’s advice to her makes it clear that she knew Alicia did not have the experience to do this. It serves as a calculated move to remove Alicia from Clea’s responsibility. Yes, what Clea must face likely requires much of her time and energy, but the callous disregard for Alicia and her feelings and needs highlights how little support Alicia has in the ‘real world.’

This isn’t the first time she verbally abuses Alicia in this story either. We see painfully barbed comments that strike at Alicia’s insecurities whenever we encounter the ‘Faded Woman’ in Forgotten Battlefield and the Endless Tower. Clea’s dialogue here reveals that prior to Verso’s death, Alicia did not engage in painting as much as the other members of the family. Instead, she often read books and kept to herself. Her isolation preceded the traumatic death of Verso and significantly worsens after his death.

At the end of Act 2, while in the Monolith, the characters catch glimpses of Aline’s memories. In them, we see a strict and precise task master, who strives to teach Painting to her children. One memory reveals Alicia arguing with her mother, and her mother’s harsh gestures imply equally harsh words. Alicia runs away in tears, but because these scenes are black and white, it’s hard to know exactly who they are until after the reveal of who Maelle actually is at the end of the Act.

Later in Act 3, especially if one goes to The Reacher, we learn that Aline only found one of Maelle’s paintings worthy of being placed on the wall — a realistic rendition of the manor. No other painting by her is deemed good enough, and Maelle admits that she preferred other activities like reading, writing, and exploring outdoors. She didn’t fit in with the strict norms of her family, and she suffered isolation and neglect for it.

This paints a world in which Alicia has little to no support. She’s essentially isolated, her world relegated to the walls of the Dessendre manor, and her voice literally taken from her. The scars of the fire are still visible on her face and throat, and one of her eyes is missing. It makes one wonder at the state of healthcare in this world, because even in our real world, skin grafts to assist in healing burns were developed starting in the 1800s. Is the Dessendre’s ‘real world’ thus not an allegorical setting akin to the 1800s? It’s hard to say based on the few scenes we’re given of their ‘real world,’ but either way, the lack of care given to Alicia shows a blatant disregard for her needs.

Clea may care for her younger sister to some degree, but her verbally abusive nature whittles away at what little confidence and hope Alicia has left after the life-threatening fire. Layer this with her mother’s brutal and precise task master approach, and we’re left with a fairly hostile environment. Research has shown healing can be heavily hindered if one stays in abusive and hostile environments.

Does Verso provide support? Prior to his death, the only clues we’re given relies on the Axon Renoir painted to represent him: The One Who Guards Truth With Lies. Although the Axon mostly represents how Renoir saw his family members, the Painted Verso fits this persona in disturbing ways. Throughout Act 2, Painted Verso outright lies to the team and admits to it. He omits important information until he is called out on it, and then tries to justify his behavior with no sign of accountability for the harmful impact it had. 

Perhaps the most alarming action he did is the conversation Verso has with Maelle that maxes out the relationship mechanic. 

MAELLE: So wait, you’ve been watching me this whole time? From afar?
PAINTED VERSO: I’d slip back into Lumeire occassionally.
MAELLE: You knew where I was, and you left me there too.
PAINTED VERSO: I couldn’t exactly take you with me, but I tried to look out for you. And once you left Lumiere I stayed close. I pulled the really dangerous Nevrons out of your path, and I pulled you away on the beach.
MAELLE: … but you also let Renoir kill the rest of the Expedition. You didn’t help them.
PAINTED VERSO: There were too many of them to save.
MAELLE: I need to ask you something…
PAINTED VERSO: What?
MAELLE: You wouldn’t lie to me, right?
PAINTED VERSO: I think we’re well past that.
MAELLE: On the cliff… Gustave…
PAINTED VERSO: What is it?
MAELLE: Did you let Renoir kill Gustave? Could you have saved him?

It’s here the cut-scene offers the player the choice whether to lie to Maelle or speak the truth. It’s the first time in the game, that the player gets to choose an option that speaks truth rather than lies. Up to this point, many of Painted Verso’s dialogue options held only remnants of truth amidst a field of lies and omitted facts. In Act 2, he gaslight Maelle, manipulated her in rather disturbing ways, in order to push for the outcome he wanted.

If the player chooses the truth option, Maelle’s final gradient attack will be unlocked, but if the player does not, then that final gradient attack will stay locked. The lie option ends the scene with Maelle’s trust broken and her reactions rather forced, her pain evident. .But what is the truth then?

Verso simply sighs and answers, “Yes.” He admits to letting Gustave die. 

Maelle’s pained sigh, her facial expression, and body language show how it pains her to hear. And yet, she does her best to try to forgive him for it. This moment is one of the few times Painted Verso doesn’t try to mask his truth with veiled lies or misdirection. He directly states he did it because he was afraid that “if you found out about the Canvas and he was there, you’d refuse to help me send Maman home.” In turn, Maelle simply thanks him for telling the truth and proceeds to change the subject.

The game insists that the bond between them grew, but Maelle is more guarded and uses false cheer in the conversations they have at camp after this scene. It seems to me that the game lies about their bond growing closer — again that clue that Verso is an unreliable narrator — as Maelle’s trust feels fractured afterward. But because of how Lumeire raised her with kindness and care, she does her best to move forward and forgive. She’s already learned her lesson that revenge does not heal the wound of grief. She’d pursued it by destroying Painted Renoir before the end of Act 2, and she learns from this that revenge is not the path to healing.

For Verso? To let Gustave die, to gaslight and lie to Maelle about it until confronted, is a level of abuse and harm that rivals even Clea. As much as Painted Verso cares for Maelle, he also did her great harm. The only time he truly apologizes is in this moment, and yet he also seems to backtrack on this in a later conversation within a dungeon, where he justifies his actions up to that point in the story. So does he truly hold himself accountable for the harm done? Not really.

Renoir, to his credit, does not blame Alicia at any point for what happened to her. He seems to truly care for her, since he watches over her throughout Expedition 33’s journey as the Curator. The axon he paints for her, in contrast with the others, is about his expectations and hopes for her to reach her potential. While the other axons he painted embodied the personality that he saw in that family member: Verso — his manipulation and layers of masks that hide his truth, Aline — she who paints with wonder but also can trap a person in an illusion, Clea — a person with a city on their back who refuses to accept help. Hers is the only axon already defeated before Expedition 33. Yet despite his high expectations for Alicia — as in her axon reaches for the stars — this proves more a burden than a help. 

Thus, when the player finds this axon, Maelle’s cut-scene shows her listening to Painted Alicia, abiding by her Painted Self’s wishes, and then freeing the axon to drift away toward the stars. Through this action, she literally lets go of her father’s expectations and accepts who she actually is. She doesn’t have to try to live up to it. She simply needs to be herself. It’s a massive growth for her character, but it also shows that even Renoir, who is not abusive to her, has failed to truly see her. 

Instead, his duties to the family, his devotion to his craft, and his time spent in Canvas — he speaks at one point to hundreds of worlds he and Aline made together — implies an unintentional neglectfulness toward Alicia. Thus, even her more accepting father, still doesn’t make time for her, and in their final confrontation scene at the end of Act 3, she asks him to please give her the autonomy she desperately seeks. The one thing that everyone in the Dessendre family keeps taking from her.

To return to her scene with Clea, situated as before the events of the Canvas in the Clair Obscur timeline, Alicia must face several painful truths: she is newly disabled and without support. She is blamed for Verso’s death, which adds to her guilt and pain. This, in turn, increases her isolation, where she hides in her room unable to face a world that refuses to offer her any sympathy.

For what does she have to look forward to at this point? So, despite wishing to help, Clea leaves her with only one choice: enter the Canvas to assist Renoir.

Except she’s doomed to fail as Clea doesn’t bother to properly train or prepare her. Her ‘advice’ gets tossed at Alicia last minute, during her panic attack, and as someone whose had panic attacks prior, it is near impossible to hear what others are saying during them. Clea doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. It puts Alicia out of her hair, so Clea can focus on the ‘real world’ issues and ignore the needs of her sister.

Thus, their mother easily takes hold of Alicia and paints her into Lumerie as a baby. 

Whether Aline does this to help her daughter is unknown. It is far more likely that this is a calculated move to give the people of Lumeire a protector. Aline doesn’t want Alicia to side with Renoir in this conflict, and what better way to convince her youngest than to have Alicia be born as a Lumeirian? Alicia is given no choice in this, and the act of painting over her suppresses her ‘real world’ memories. Leaving her only with this ‘feeling’ that she’s different somehow, and that something is not quite right.

Thus, her ‘birth’ as a baby and her growing up as Lumeirian reveals a very different childhood for her. Over this, we hear a loving monologue, where the words are not riddled with near-impossible expectations to reach for the stars. Instead, it’s layered in a hope that she will be surrounded by love, and that she, in turn, will show this love as a shining light to others.

Maelle, Lune, and Neurodivergency

As a Lumierian, she has no facial scarring or visible deformities or illness. She’s abled-bodied and fairly well-adjusted due to the care and support Lumerians give her. She’s taught people-centric values that deeply contradict the more individualistic ‘real world.’ So although her Lumeirian self isn’t necessarily disabled, she still struggles with feeling like she was out of sync with the world. She says as much to Gustave, Lune, Sciel, and eventually Verso. She never felt like she belonged, and her ‘weirdness’ though tolerated tended to put her apart from other children.

Her time as a Lumeirian gives her a loving chosen family, yes, but it also plays with an interesting neurodivergent theme. Feeling ‘out of sync’ or that there’s something everyone knows but she doesn’t are all fairly common feelings within the neurodivergent world of those with ADHD, Autism, and other learning and behavior differences.

Lune also exhibits highly neurodivergent behaviors, which may explain how the two gravitated toward each other throughout the course of their journey. Lune felt cut off and out of place among her people just like Maelle. She struggles with social interactions at times, has a deep yearning for truth and learning, and often speaks her mind bluntly. Maelle falls into a similar pattern with her own bluntness and desperate need to know the truth. Both tend to fall into patterns of silence, where they observe more than they speak — Lune even more so than Maelle. They also have a tendency to hyper fixate, which Lune does continuously throughout the story.

For example, at the start of Act 2, Sciel lays on the ground and looks up at the stars while Lune works on a rock near her.

SCIEL: What are you working on?
LUNE: Contingency plans. If we fail Expedition 32 will need every bit of information we have.
SCIEL: But how are you going to get it to them?
LUNE: I asked the gestrals for help.
SCIEL: Smart.

Here we see Lune fervently working on her notes regarding everything they’ve learned thus far. This is an action she does continously throughout the game. In a way, one could describe her work as a hyper fixation. As the scene continues to play out, Lune brings up the memory of how they met at the Crooked Tower.

LUNE: I was surprised to find you there. I thought I was the only one who knew about that room.
SCIEL: I had to get away from the harbor and those damn petals everywhere. So I climbed up.
LUNE: It wasn’t logical but part of me really believed my parents and their expedition had succeeded. That they’d stopped her. Then the paintress woke, and I knew they weren’t coming home.
SCIEL: You know, it meant a lot to me, the comfort we shared that day. But you avoided me after. Why?
LUNE: It — it wasn’t personal. I cut a lot of people out of my life.
SCIEL: Okay. Not personal.
LUNE: That day, when I knew my parents had failed, they were counting on me to finish their work.

Here Lune shares the reason for her hyperfixation. As an apprentice to her parents’ work, along with Tristan from the prologue, she had been brought up with the idea that the work must be completed regardless. So in her grief, she turns to this work, to her calculations, her mapping, her research of past expeditions. She pushes aside attempts by others to build friendships with her. Although she realizes, talking with Sciel in this scene, that friendships aren’t a distraction, she still maintains afterward that hyper fixation. She simply allows the others to help hold her in check, which is similar to what Maelle will do throughout Act 2 and especially Act 3.

Hyper fixations on specific topics are incredibly common for neurodivergent people, and it can become easy to fall into that fixation, to not allow any distractions, to work on it day and night for weeks or months or years. Often to the detriment of one’s health. Part of that stems from the way our brains are wired, but part of that may also stem from our environment, how we were raised, and if we use it as a form of escape.

Due to how toxic American society is for disabled people, including neurodivergent people, forms of escape were often necessary for survival. Clair Obscur may not have the same originating trajectory for disablement as our real world, but they do have a similar drive to escape from intense emotions like grief and pain. We see this here with Lune.

And we see this with Maelle, once we learn the truth of who she is. She struggles to connect with people; hyper fixates on things she enjoys such as fencing; quietly observes; and speaks bluntly her truth. She, like Lune, also struggles to meet people’s gazes, often looking to the side or away from them as they speak. In contrast, other characters like Sciel and Verso will meet the other’s gaze steadily. Small tells like this are meant to show the differences in behaviors that are often used to denote neurodivergent characters.

Similar to how Lune escaped into her work, Maelle may escape to this world where she is treated with love, care, and respect, where her autonomy is respected, but is that truly a bad thing? Considering the abuse she faces in her ‘real world,’ I’ve argued (as have others) this isn’t. One can read my analysis of Clair Obscur’s endings here.

Despite their differences, they are still accepted within Lumerian culture, as they still are able to contribute to it in their own unique ways. Again, the value placed on them comes from their existence as a person worthy of care. This is in contrast to our world where value is placed on the labor one performs in order for their employer to increase their profits.

So although they may admit to feeling out of place, their ‘weirdness’ and behaviors are accepted in a way that does not happen in the ‘real world.’

Conclusion and Epilogue

The ending of the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 offers the player two choices. They can side with Painted Verso, who wishes to end the Canvas and the existence of every sentient being in it. Or they can side with Maelle who wishes to save the Canvas and restore life to those gommaged by Renoir. 

It’s a difficult choice. In my last essay I dug into both choices to show details that hint at how the game misleads the player. 

In Maelle’s ending, she is given agency, autonomy, and her chosen family who supports her, even despite her disability. She may choose to keep her painted face rather than the scarred one, but you can still see remnants of scars on her neck, and her neurodivergency doesn’t go away as it’s core to who she is. 

In Verso’s ending, Maelle returns to the ‘real world’ as Alicia, and ends up trapped in the same suffocating and isolating environment that prevents her healing. We see no true changes in her parents behaviors or even Clea. When Alicia/Maelle looks toward Clea, her older sister’s face hardens, and she soon walks away. This reveals that Clea has not changed, and she still blames Alicia. As for the parents, none of them look at Alicia/Maelle in the scene. They hold one another and look at the grave. No one reaches out to make sure she’s okay. No one comforts her, and she only smiles when she hallucinates her Canvas family. When they gommage away, her body language wilts. 

Again, healing while still in a hostile/unsupportive and/or abusive environment complicates the process, and often makes it near impossible. As the triggers that exacerbate the trauma symptoms continue. One must leave in order to find true healing. Alicia/Maelle cannot do this in Verso’s ending. She has no real support system.

It’s only in Maelle’s ending that we see her with her chosen family, who loves and supports her. Who holds her accountable, and Maelle, throughout all three Acts, shows a willingness to be held accountable, apologize, and do better. (Her interaction with Verso after Maelle grants Painted Alicia her wish reveals how Maelle listens to Painted Verso’s feelings, acknowledges them, apologies, and does her best to do better.) This shows she can grow and learn from her mistakes, and those around her provide the accountability for her to stay true to the path that is just and kind.

Maelle’s ending also provides agency to Painted Verso. Her question to him plays over the scene at the opera house, where she asks, “If you could grow old, would you?”

It’s an offer for him to finally end his immortality and be freed from his legacy as a painted manifestation of a dead brother. The game however cuts the scene with a glimpse of Alicia in the ‘real world,’ where her face is covered with paint to signify she has the Canvas/Painting sickness. WIth how the colors fade out of the scene and Maelle’s sad smile, both recognize that they are dying.

But for Maelle, she is able to share her life with people who love and support her, who provide her with care, and who see her worth regardless. This gives her the space and time to start the long healing process. It’s a promise of sorts in her ending, and it’s absent in Verso’s ending.

Thus, depending on the player’s choice, Maelle can either lose her autonomy, her voice, her support network, her chosen family — where people choose for her — or Maelle keeps her autonomy, her voice, her support networks and chosen family. Where she is able to choose this for herself.

Often Disabled people’s choices are restricted, if not taken from us entirely by people who believe they know what’s best for us. This is why institutionalization was so popular throughout our history, and still is today, and it’s why disabled people like myself fight so hard to end institutionalization, to push for us to be where the decisions are made about our health and our lives.

Clair Obscur paints us two endings that reveals this dire choice: essentially institutionalizing Alicia/Maelle or giving her agency to choose what is best for herself.

And that’s really what it comes down to for Disabled people, isn’t it? Our current society tells us that we cannot choose for ourselves, that we are ruined, that we are disposable, that we do not deserve care and support — all because we cannot perform labor the way capitalist society demands. These messages are painted all over media, such as using disability as a trope for villainy or for tragic deaths to bolster a hero’s journey. Will we be given the care and support we need to thrive? Will we be given agency to choose our own fate and route to healing?

Clair Obscur offers that choice to the player, thus placing the fate of a disabled person in their hands. In a way, the player acts as the judge who determines the fate of a disabled person, to determine whether they ever access the care and benefits they need. It is a replica of how our real world works, and it forces a painful glimpse into the struggles of disabled people. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a game about Disability and Grief. It paints the world in gorgeous detail, provides Lumeire’s culture of collective care and cooperation as a foil to our more profit-driven, oppressive real world. It twists disabled tropes on its head and asks hard questions about the fate of disabled people, the fate of entire sentient species, and what it takes to heal.

In a world replete with painful and inaccurate disability representation, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shines as a rare gem. And as a disabled and neurodivergent person, I am grateful for that journey.

Thank you for reading.

#AnalyzingVideoGames #antiCapitalism #capitalism #Characters #collectiveCare #CultureOfCare #Deconstruction #disabilities #disability #disabilityJustice #disabled #games #healing #healingFromAbuse #HistoryOfDisability #inclusion #justice #mentalHealth #PTSD #videoGames #writing

The Endings of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — The Game Who Masks Truth And Lies With Beauty

Let’s explore the endings of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by examining the ways the game deliberately misleads the player. We’ll also examine the character of Maelle/Alicia in particular to see what evidence we have concerning her Painter ability and of her morals and personality.

NOTE THIS IS A CROSSPOST FROM MY COMRADERY.

For those that have not played it, this will contain SPOILERS for the endings.

To guide the reader, here are the major characters that will be referenced in this essay.

Playable Characters:

• Gustave (Act 1)
• Lune
• Maelle
• Sciel
• Painted Verso
• Monoco

Crucial Non-player characters: Various named Lumerie citizens, Gestrals, and Grandis that the players meet throughout the game. They won’t factor into today’s essay however.

 Dessendre family:

• Renoir (father)
• Aline (mother)
• Clea (oldest daughter)
• Original Verso (the son who died)
• Alicia (youngest daughter)

 (There is a painted version of Renoir, Verso, Clea, and Alicia in the World of the Canvas).

 That’s all the people you really need to know to understand the following. 

 Is the Canvas people Real?

 One of my essays digs into the question as to whether the people of the Canvas are real. Which, if real, the erasure of the Canvas would be a genocide. If not real, then no harm no foul.

 I came to the conclusion that I agree with Maelle. They are real; they are alive; they are sentient; they are unique. Destroying the Canvas is a genocide of multiple diverse cultures. I won’t dig into the reasons here as that would require a full, separate essay. This youtuber does an excellent video essay on this by the way and the youtuber also digs far more deeply than I do into why Maelle’s ending is the morally ‘good’ choice. Check it out.

Now let’s look at how the endings are presented.

The Game Deliberately Misleads

 The game uses carefully placed shots to mislead us. As in, this game actively *lies* to us. Why?

 For one:

 Verso is an unreliable narrator. When a character actively lies and/or projects their view of things onto others and/or manipulates others through deception and lies — they are inherently unreliable in regards to truth and what is real. It’s a literary tool used to tell a story that speaks more to the unreliable character whose view we see than to the world in which that character reacts to and/or judges.

 There is a reason the axon representing Verso is called the Mask Keeper — He Who Guards Truth With Lies. Verso actively gaslights people in order to get his way, and lies often. He even introduces himself as a liar, so he recognizes his own nature. This doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of compassion — he is, and he is quite charming, but it doesn’t erase the harm he’s done to get his way.

 By making him the protagonist in Act 2, that shifts Act 2 into an unreliable narrator stance. So we’re left on edge, wondering what the truth actually is. We know that Verso is holding back something from the others, but we don’t know what. What does he guard with his lies?

 If he had been honest from the start would it have altered things? Perhaps or perhaps not. He doesn’t give anyone the autonomy to make that decision. He makes it for them in order to exert as much control as he can. Which ironically is not all that different from Renoir’s attempts at controlling his family.

 Again, one can still love others and still be a controlling jerk. Verso is inherently complex, but also unreliable when it comes to the truth.

 For two:

 The game is a masterclass in burying the lead. Leading us to believe who is really the protagonist, only to yank the floor out from under us twice.

 First, we are led to believe the main protagonist is Gustave. Then the shocking and painful end of Act 1 reveals that no, Gustave isn’t the main lead.

 For Act 2, the perspective is Verso, though the game itself plays as a team, where Maelle, Lune, Sciel, Verso, and Monoco are all playable. The fighting mechanic allows for a team of three to fight together.

 Then comes the shocking end of Act 2, which leads us in still another direction.

 We learn that the one person who witnesses the vast majority of this story is actually Maelle, who is Alicia — the youngest Dessendre, who Aline had repainted as a baby into the Canvas world. This allowed Alicia to grow up as part of the Canvas people but without her memories.

 In Act 3, Maelle regains her memories of her life as Alicia, and admits to Lune and Sciel how weird it is to have memories of two lives in her head– one in the real world and one in the Canvas. In her Act, the entire truth is unveiled, which serves in contrast to the deception within Verso’s Act.

 So we’re led astray several times before the truth finally sprouts, and the truth doesn’t unravel until the perspective is Maelle’s. That I think is perhaps the most honest this game is. It’s a signal to the players that Maelle will tell us the truth.

For three:

 There’s several interpretations to everything in this game. Even the ending has several interpretations regardless of who you choose in the end. This is done through fantastic camera angles and carefully cut shots, positioned to evoke the most emotions from a player. It’s masterfully done, and absolutely stunning.

 So let’s discuss the endings! I’ll dig into my take on it, while doing my best to refute a common take that I feel falls for the misleading camera shots this game does.

One way the game mislead players is in Maelle/Alicia’s ending:

 In Maelle’s ending, we see everyone at the Opera house, and an older Verso sits down to play. The game cuts to Alicia in real life with the paint on her face, then back to the Canvas world. Many people interpret this as her puppeting him, which isn’t accurate to who she is nor does it fit the evidence of what she is capable of doing.

 To puppet him requires a tremendous power in the art of Painting and control of that power that doesn’t exist in the evidence the game lays out for us. So let’s dig into that first.

 If we look at Alicia’s talent as a Painter, every person in her family seems to view her as not being as talented as the rest of the family. Only one of her paintings met Aline’s rigidly high standards, and it was one of their mansion.

 Renoir at least holds hope she can reach the potential he sees in her, but is what he sees his vision and expectations for her rather than who she truly is?

 I know what it’s like to have a parent with ridiculously high expectations of what I am potentially capable of doing, and yet in the end, that smothered me and made my life infinitely harder. This is why Maelle releasing her father’s Axon of her is her letting go of her father’s expectations of her. It’s the healthiest action she could take honestly.

Her Painter Ability

 We are shown how Alicia doesn’t seem to enjoy painting. She would prefer to read books, an activity Clea disdains in their scenes together. We also see no proof that Alicia has much power as a Painter either. Her painting is of the mansion, but it’s simply a replica of what already exists.

 Also, no one — not even Aline, the most powerful Painter in the game, could mind-control anyone. If Aline could, painted Verso wouldn’t have turned against her; she would have puppetted him.

One might argue that Clea found a way. She painted over Aline’s painted version of her. (Say that ten times fast!) Yet I suspect she may have painted Aline’s version out of existence and left her version with a task to do. Clea’s version is able to recognize Verso likely because Clea put a piece of herself in her creation, perhaps inadvertently.

 Clea’s version also has unnatural eyes similar to a possible Nevron, while Aline’s version were human. Yes, one of her eyes turns human when she recognizes Verso, but she’s not Aline’s version. She’s Clea’s version, and thus she battles with how Clea made her versus her recognition of Verso. That is why her ending is tragic. Clea never achieved mind-control — she merely repainted the person entirely, and piece of her she left behind ends up turning on herself.

 This ability to paint over others’ creations only Clea and Aline seem to have. Neither Renoir or Alicia are ever shown as having this ability.

Personality and Morals

 At start of Act 3, Verso must teach Maelle how to paint. It does not come to her easily, and with his lesson, she uses her fencing to aid her in bringing back Sciel and Lune. But all she is able to do is coalesce their chroma back into who they were the moment they were gommaged by Renoir. This is evidenced in how Sciel coughs and Lune takes in a breath, where both are baffled as to how they are at camp rather than Lumerie.

 She wants to bring her loved ones back, to remember them for who they are, not to control them. She wants them to live out their lives naturally, and she proves this again and again in her actions, where she does her best to save others.

 In fact, she doesn’t want to fight her father or Verso, and she offers them choices which depend on them accepting her autonomy. They refuse. In Verso’s case he refuses to his death, and in Renoir’s case, he finally relents when he realizes that taking away his daughter’s autonomy could destroy her more than her staying would.

 Alicia/Maelle shows no interest in painting, nor does she show any interest in creating anything. She enjoys fencing, helping foster kids, doing parkour atop buildings, and reading books. Her delight seems to come from helping others, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up in a teaching role as an adult.

 To bring back those gommaged, she recognizes that she might die if she does this act, but of all her family members, she is willing to sacrifice her life so others may live. That’s a level of compassion that her other family members just don’t show — except for possibly original Verso.

 Alicia/Maelle goes out of her way to honor the wishes of others (See the Reach area where painted Alicia asks to die, and Maelle does as she asks). Over and over she shows integrity that the other members of her family seem to lack (except for possibly real Renoir). When she messes up, she listens, seeks understanding, respects the other, and apologizes. Then she seems to do her best to hold herself accountable. This shows how she is still growing. She learns from her mistakes.

She’s reliable, definitely as reliable as Lune and Sciel, and she goes out of her way to speak truth to the best of her knowledge. As soon as she knows a new truth, she immediately shares it with her loved ones as soon as she can (such as every scene with Lune, Sciel, Gustave, Monoco, and Verso).

As for the shadow boy who represents the shard of original Verso’s soul, I can trust Maelle will take care of him as gently and kindly as she takes care of the other foster kids.

She will also be honest with him. Verso approaches him with leading questions, projects how he feels onto the boy, and manipulates the boy toward an answer. Maelle does not do this. 

Her interactions with the shadow boy is to ask straightforward questions on how the boy feels and what the boy thinks, and to ask for clarification (one can see this in the various places in the Canvas world where you encounter the boy. The boy speaks of a world he loved before others came and hurt them).

Now this is where her narration in her ending is absolutely crucial.

 At the start of her ending, she asks, “if you could grow old, would you?” That question gives Verso autonomy to decide if he would or not, and I’m sure Maelle/Alicia would accept his choice.

 Because his reasoning for destroying the Canvas world has less to do with concern for the real Dessendre family, but for his own needs to not live an immortal life as a facsimile of a real person. He outright says “I don’t want this life.” And the few times he’s honest, he admits to hating how Aline made him immortal.

 So in the narration over the Opera scene, Maelle offers a compromise. Why? Because she understands that he doesn’t want the immortal life. She accepts that and offers him an alternative. Based on his appearance on stage, he takes her at her word.

 The dissonant note before he plays is his old age showing. He likely is dying. Then the game shows us a glimpse of real world Alicia, how she too is dying because of her choice to remain in the Canvas.

 Maelle understands this, and it’s why the scene goes gray. She’s grieving already, but there is an acceptance in her face. She will let him go, and I can trust her to do so.

 Will she leave her Canvas world to avoid her own death? Likely no, but it is her decision. I do not fault her for staying with healthier and more loving people; that’s what I did when I escaped my abuse.

 In the real world, she lived in isolation within an abusive environment. I’ll discuss how her real life environment is abusive when I speak to the second possible ending below. For the moment, let us examine how one heals from abuse.

 It’s not possible to heal from abuse while still trapped in an abusive environment. It’s only when I escaped my abuse that I was able to finally start my healing journey. It’s why psychologists and social workers work to aid people in escaping abuse first before the healing process starts.

 I like to describe it as: if you were being continuously stabbed, how could your body ever heal from stab wounds if you didn’t escape that situation? It can’t. Neither can the scars of emotional, verbal, physical, and/or sexual abuse.

 In the Canvas, Maelle has a loving chosen family who helps her stay morally good and on the right path. She is no longer isolated and driven toward suicide. She has escaped her former abusive environment.

 She wants to do right by her loving family. So not only does her ending prevent a genocide, but it gives the characters the most autonomy and chance at life than any other ending.

Maelle/Alicia’s fate in Verso’s ending.

 Some claim Verso’s ending is the ‘better’ ending because the family is facing their grief. Yet are they facing their grief? They are certainly facing a gravestone at least.

 The game shows the scene without any jarring juxapositions of one world versus another. For all intents and purposes, it seems like the family has taken a step toward healing.

 I argue this is the game misleading us again.

Clea is still angry and focused on Revenge. She has shown zero growth. Her character looks at the grave, looks at the rest of the family, and she storms off not long after the scene starts. She’s still angry, and nothing in her facial expressions or behavior shows she’s learned anything from the Canvas events. If anything, it just annoyed her and took her away from her true mission: revenge.

From her dialogue to Alicia throughout the story, it does not seem likely she will provide any support for her. At best, she views her as a person to protect rather than someone worthy of autonomy and respect; it’s unlikely she’s gotten over blaming Alicia for Verso’s death. At worst, she blames Alicia still and would rather she stay out of everything going forward. The only evidence the game provides is when Clea looks at Alicia and her expression hardens. 

 Aline and Renoir are shattered by the events of the Canvas and take solace in each other. They utterly ignore Alicia/Maelle, who is once more alone and isolated. Aline seems truly broken, and the game hints that staying in the Canvas as long as Aline and Renoir did causes damage to one’s mind and body. Whether they recover from this? There’s no evidence the game provides either for it or against it.

 Alicia attempts to connect to Clea by looking at her, but Clea gives her nothing in return, only walks away. The only smile Alicia has is when she hallucinates her dead Canvas family, and her smile fades when they gommage away. She is left with nothing but a plushie.

 I fear for her because she’s trapped in an abusive environment in the real world. So forcing her away from her chosen family and back into abuse is the worse choice in my opinion.

 Every scene of her in the real world shows her isolated. Sure, Clea can push Alicia to leave her room, but none of her words show any emotional support. She is hurtful, critical, and pushes Alicia into choices without regard for what Alicia wants.

 Alicia can’t even speak up as her voice was lost in the fire — in fact the burns on her face and her lost eye? This family is rich and they don’t have any healthcare access? Where are the doctors in this world? Even with a heavily burned face, there’s ways to soothe the healing to avoid massive scarring, but that wasn’t done at all for Alicia.

 Alicia is newly disabled. She’s isolated. She has no care system in the real world. We’re expected to believe being cut off from the only family that gave her care is healthy for her?

 Staying in an abusive environment will never let you heal. Studies have shown this, and the professional advice given is to assist in helping the person survive and eventually leave the abusive environment. Then and only then can one tackle the trauma from that abuse. I know for myself I could not heal while I was stuck in an abusive environment. It wasn’t until I escaped that I could finally start to heal.

 Proof Alicia is in an abusive environment:

 So why would Maelle/Alicia trust him when he says things will get better? He’s the only one that could perhaps convince her, but his arguments fall flat because he has nothing to offer her. No better future to help her envision. Only empty platitudes. And it’s why he gives up on control, and finally gives her the autonomy she should have had in the first place.

 Is it any wonder that Maelle doesn’t want to return to that soulless ‘real world?’ She has no support system. She’s in an abusive environment. Her voice has been taken from her. She has no autonomy.

 Again, this is where the game misleads. Because astute players will notice in Verso’s ending, that the only smile Alicia has is when she hallucinates her friends from the Canvas world, but her smile fades the moment they gommage away. The game ends with her alone, cut off still, with only a plushie for comfort.

 If there is one person I can trust in this game to do the right thing, it’s Maelle who has proven that over and over. Even after learning the truth of who she was, she still did her best to honor the wishes of others. To listen to them, and when she finds out she inadvertently hurt someone, she apologizes, owns up for her mistake, and tries to do better next time.

 She actively learns and grows from her mistakes, and she does this because when she was part of the Canvas people as one of them she had loving people to teach her a different way to be.

 The Canvas chosen family will keep her in check. They have from the start, and she trusts them, sometimes more than she trusts herself. This is why I decided her ending is the morally good one: one it stops a genocide, but also the healthier choice for Alicia/Maelle. It also shows more respect for the autonomy of the characters as well.

 But again, the game specifically sets up the endings to mislead us. To make us question what is really happening. This is why there’s been so many conflicting viewpoints on the nature of these endings and what they mean.

 We’re meant to question reality. What is real? What is the truth? Who can we trust in all of this?

 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a tragedy. No matter what choices we make in the end, there will always be a tragic side to it.

 It’s up to us to decide meaning from this tragedy, and take that with us in our own journeys.

Thank you for reading.

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Discover how to foster abundance in relationships by overcoming societal challenges, promoting empathy, and supporting recovery from abuse.

#healing #recoveryjourney #heal #healingtrauma #healingjourney #HealingCommunity #healingfromabuse #abundance

https://windhavenfoundation.org/abundance-in-relationships-how-to-overcome-core-challenges/

3 Signs Of TOXIC People | ArmyPink.com | Army Pink Empowerment #shorts #healingfromabuse

You don’t deserve emotional abuse, and if it happens it’s not your fault. This is how you can recognize the top 3 signs of emotional abusers though there many more red flags to watch out for. If you identify the early signs of abuse you can start leaving an abusive relationship sooner rather than later. The Army Pink Brand Mission is to offer Help For Abuse Survivors by sharing…

https://armypinkyt.wordpress.com/2023/09/06/3-signs-of-toxic-people-armypink-com-army-pink-empowerment-shorts-healingfromabuse/