Massive spoilers under the cut for both Clair Obscur (all acts) and the first ten seasons of Red vs Blue.
Okay this took way longer to get together and I know this is going to be an incredibly niche thing but hear me out:
Verso is to Clair Obscur as Tex is to Red vs Blue.
I'm just going to go down a list of all the connections between these two characters, so hang on.
1.) The most obvious: they both are the catalyst for every event during their game/show. An even more specific connection on that point: their deaths are the catalyst.
Verso's death in the fire is what leads directly to Aline escaping to his Canvas in order to find any sort of comfort she could. She needed an escape from reality, and what better way than to literally make the perfect life for herself? One where the fire either never happened, or at least never claimed the life of her son? Where her son can live out the life stolen from him? And once Aline enters the Canvas to live her perfect life, Renoir follows to destroy it and force her back into reality. Clea joins in as well, creating monsters to destroy not just Aline's creations (like Renoir's gommage), but to destroy everything. So that even if Aline somehow managed to cast out Renoir, the Canvas would still be under constant attack and eventually whittled away to nothing.
Tex's death in battle leads the Director into a spiral where he creates Project Freelancer and gets his hands on an AI based on his own mind. He, with the aid of the Councilor, then torture this AI until it fragments itself (I may be mixing up the exact timeline of events here; it's been a few years since I've watched the series in full and I'm only in s3 on my rewatch). The Director proceeds to continue torturing the Alpha AI (we're going to call him A!Church moving forward) into multiple personality fragments, and really kicking off the series with his experiments with those fragments and the soldiers he plans on implanting them in, as well as the simulation troops he recruits to use as fodder for their training.
2.) Both the Verso and Tex that we the audience know are not the original ones, and all we ever get on the originals is from the memories of their loved ones.
We do not see or hear R!Verso. Ever. The one time he's physically (and not just a painting in the family portrait) on-screen is during Alicia's nightmare, and I do not trust that to be an accurate depiction of him. P!Alicia's memories of his screams are probably the most accurate thing we know, however even those are not from the man himself. His entire family has quite a few opinions on him though, and each of them have their own interpretations of who he was. The only concrete thing we know about R!Verso is that he loved his sister enough to die for her, and that he liked the piano. Everything else is only memories, and memories can be faded and corrupted.
To Aline, Verso is her perfect son, and seemingly much more childlike than a thirty year old would be (case in point, the almost...childishly shallow interest in trains P!Verso shows in Frozen Hearts; saying he likes them and then not elaborating any further in a way someone genuinely interested might). She cannot imagine a world where he ever isn't her little boy that loves her, which is why in her fight she believes he's a creation of Renoir and not her own.
To Renoir, Verso was a master of hiding. So theatric that he could take your focus away from what was under the mask. Art is both mirror and window, and in Renoir's eyes, Verso never wanted to look through them. P!Verso's very existence enrages him (mostly because his creation is why Aline is staying in the Canvas, but still), though his ire is directed towards his wife, and he only shows pity towards P!Verso. To me, this at least implies a little bit that he doesn't agree with Aline's portrait of their son.
We don't hear much from Clea, however we do know she feels Verso shouldn't have sacrificed himself for Alicia. This could imply that it's well-known in the family that Alicia aided (whether knowingly or not) the Writers who started the fire, and Clea believes her sister should have paid that price as the guilty party. Or, that she was closer with Verso and would rather it was him over her that survived (this is not my personal opinion, but it is still an interpretation that could be had).
Maellicia idolizes her brother, though seemingly only after he's dead, given Clea's remark about her preferring to read over spending time with the two of them. This puts us in a weird spot with her relationship to P!Verso, because she's very obviously not acting the same way with him that she had with her own brother, so we can't use this as a good jumping off point for her interpretation of him. Not only that, but she spends the majority of act 3 simultaneously treating Verso like The Real Thing, and also like he's Not Real and just a doll. It's subtle, and a lot of the time you can also interpret it as just a teenage lack of empathy, but there is a level of callousness that Maellicia shows towards Verso's feelings, where they don't seem to matter as much as what she wants (again, this can also be interpreted as a teenager just being an insensitive teenager, but I'm personally in the camp that Alicia outside the Canvas is either late teens to very early twenties* when she enters the Canvas, which is old enough to have grown a solid sense of empathy).
*Alicia's face is sharper, more adult in shape outside the Canvas, where Maelle's is very round and wide-eyed, childlike. And during the Act 3 reveal, there's a brief moment where Alicia and Maelle are back-to-back and Alicia is taller. Not only that, P!Alicia is referred to as Masked Woman, not girl. There is also Clea's comment before she enters the Canvas that Alicia isn't a child. So, no. I don't think Alicia is sixteen, but I wouldn't put her any older than, say, twenty.
Whew, okay, now on to Tex.
We do actually see real, concrete evidence of who Tex was originally. It's only about thirty seconds long, but it's actual video footage of Allison Church, the woman she's based on. She's warm and kind, a bit of a joker ('don't make me hurt you', said with a little smile as she convinces Leonard, the future Director, to let her continue getting ready to ship out), and cares about her husband. She doesn't want him to worry, and she explicitly tells him not to because she knows he will. She tells him she'll be back. And then she says the phrase that is seared into her husband and daughter's memories to the point they build their entire lives around it: don't say goodbye.
The Director remembers his wife as a total badass. The best of the best. The golden standard of a soldier. Undefeatable (but not really, and, uh, we'll definitely be delving more into that later). She takes no shit from anyone, not even him. She's sarcastic and crude. And, I cannot stress this enough, she is the best goddamn soldier to exist.
Carolina remembers her mother seemingly very similarly, though from what I can remember, she doesn't talk too much on her. If I recall though, we do hear from her that Allison wasn't around much, so a lot of what she knows about her is most likely from her father. She does add a bit to Allison's words at the end of Leonard's video: never say goodbye. If you don't say goodbye, then you aren't really gone. You just aren't here right now.
3.) They cannot die. But the ways in which they cannot die are fascinating to me.
Verso is easy. He is literally immortal. As long as the Canvas lives, so does he. Whether this is because when Aline painted her family she wove their chroma so tightly with the essence of the Canvas that nothing barring its destruction (or another Painter's interference) would kill them, or because it was simply a 'gift' she bestowed on them. Like Alicia's time-stop ability or Renoir's giant lion.
This being said, Aline didn't make him impervious to harm, which is...an odd choice to me. Granted, I have to imagine that the thought probably crossed her mind more than once, and she more than likely only didn't do it to maintain a semblance of reality for him (or else there would have been quite a few 'Maman, I just tripped and fell down the stairs, and I'm completely unharmed. Why is Alicia half burnt?').
Tex is a fragment from A!Church that was carved off in order to preserve his own mind under extreme duress from the Director and Councilor. And we actually meet quite a few different Tex copies, though the one introduced in season one is our primary (the others are, as far as I can remember, only in the end of season ten during the giant fight right before they find the Director, but it is interesting that he's made copies of her, just in case). She cannot die because she's not alive. She hops from body to body multiple times during the series (there is a hilarious running gag of her and Church being ghosts during the first five seasons). She also, seemingly, doesn't feel pain.
With this information, she could presumably live forever indefinitely. As long as there was one singular fragment of her, she could carry on.
4.) Perfection is their whole game. Another easy one.
Verso's combat mechanic is literally called a Perfection Meter. It cannot get more straightforward than that. Like, I'm pretty dense and I understood right away. If you fuck up even once, you're knocked down an entire rank. And beyond combat, that man is so desperate to be liked, to be exactly what everyone wants and needs him to be, that it's actually pretty painful to watch. And he will never reach that goal. He'll never be Aline's perfect son. He'll never be able to fill in the gap Gustave leaves (someone pointed out that the framing of cutscenes literally leaves an empty space after act 1, and if I can find it, I'll link it here). And he'll never be Maellicia's big brother who gets to grow old and find a reason to smile.
Tex has to be the best of the best, to the point that she's pitted against Carolina, the daughter of the woman she's based on the memories of, who is currently the best of the best when she comes around. She is expected to keep at the top of the leaderboard, and she does. Because failure is not an option for her. Because the Director can't stand the idea that his wife wasn't the biggest, baddest, bitch in the room. It's pointed out by multiple characters throughout the series how much better she is than everyone else, and causes several issues with other freelancers.
5.) The dark, broody, lone wolf act crumbles pretty quick.
As soon as Verso starts interacting with thirty-three, he is immediately sort of a wet cat. He is very obviously desperate for them to like him, and not even in a manipulative fashion (though that is a part of it), he just wants them to like him as a person as much as the circumstances allow. Sure, he is very obviously keeping things from them, but he literally cuts himself in half to try and lighten the mood. That is not something someone does if they don't want to be liked. It's also not a degree someone goes to if they're just trying to manipulate another (one could argue there are plenty of people that do hurt themselves as a manipulation tactic, but in my experience it's to gain pity, not laughter and curiosity, which is clearly Verso's goal). He's also desperate for them to survive. And not just Maelle, but Lune and Sciel as well. He doesn't even want to try going for the Axons because he's afraid they'll all die.
It takes a little while for Tex to really warm up to the Reds and Blues, but honestly, by season two she's goofing off with them and being absolutely ridiculous as well (this is helped the genre being firmly military comedy at this point, but I digress). Actually, as soon as it's revealed that she's a woman, her serious facade drops, though she's not yet at the point of having actual fun with them. She takes them on ridiculous quests (aliens, time travel, murder-loops, etc.) and is kind of silly the entire way. Don't get me wrong, she's definitely more the straight man archetype, but she is not serious the majority of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. Which is a wild character direction, given that her initial introduction is 'badass, killer lone-wolf only here to complete their assignment.'
6.) They can never win. Just. Hear me out on this one coe33 friends.
Let's mix things up and talk about Tex first this time.
So, Tex. I just said a few points back that she's the best of the best and has to be unbeatable because that's how the Director remembers her, didn't I? So what gives?
Here's the thing: there is only one failure that the Director can remember, and it's the most important one. Allison died. She never came home. So, it doesn't matter how good Tex is, how many points on the leaderboard there are, she is always going to lose. Because that is the most prominent thing he, and by extension A!Church, can remember about her. She is going to die by friendly fire; she is going to be captured in an AI holding unit; she will fail to save A!Church or any of her friends; she is going to leave and never return; Tex will always lose when the cards are down.
She will never say goodbye, and she will never come home.
Okay, Verso is an interesting one, because depending on how you play, it actually seems like he does win not once, but twice. But I'd argue that he's not winning either time. Hear me out, because I think Verso suffers from the exact same handicap as Tex.
Both times Verso wins, it's not a victory: it's him giving up. Renoir's mass gommage? He thinks it's the only way to keep the Painters out permanently. To save the family that's not quite his own. He's given up on the idea that there's any other way. His choice at the ending? To force out Maellicia in much the same way they did Aline? It's giving up, again. Because he doesn't have the faith in her or the hope that she'll ever be able to let go. And both of these choices end in his, and everyone else's, death.
It's not winning. Regardless of the fact that Renoir's gommage doesn't even successfully kill him, I don't think Verso would even know what victory felt like, what it would mean to him.
So. We're left in the same spot with him that we are with Tex. Aline's most prominent memory of her son is his last act: giving his life to save Alicia. The Director's most prominent memory of his wife is Allison leaving and failing to come home. Verso always gives up his own life to save his family. Yes, I know a lot of interpretations of his actions are selfish, and I'm not saying they aren't, but those actions are in line with what Aline remembers of her son. Tex always leaves and always loses when it counts. She's a lone wolf that, despite all the bonds she makes and the way she clearly cares about others, will always leave, because that's what the Director remembers of her.
Verso and Tex are both little more than the faded memories of a loved one, and are never given the autonomy to try and be someone different.
Now, let's talk about something even more fascinating: the way in which they're fundamentally different (besides, of course, that Tex is an AI-powered space marine and Verso is an immortal painted creation who really likes dark poetry and piano).
I have seen few characters that want to live as badly as Tex. She is always doomed to fail, of course, but that doesn't in any way stop her from trying. And not only does she want nothing more than to live, she wants to live free of the Director and Allison's legacy. She has absolutely no desire to continue this cycle. Fucked up as it is, it's why she keeps leaving A!Church. She's trying to escape in the only way she knows how. She still loves him, and she still cares about the Reds and Blues, but she can't stay and continue playing the part of a ghost.
Verso on the other hand, wants nothing more than an end. No matter the cost. He has already caused the mass erasure of an entire city, and is prepared to destroy an entire world. As discussed above, yes, that is in part because he is programmed to sacrifice for his family's well-being. However, it is also because he cannot continue any longer living as, what he perceives at least, something less than. He doesn't view himself as real, and it's not difficult to imagine that he struggles to view any of Aline's creations as real either and therefore deems their suffering as less than that of the Dessendre family's.
Soooooo what does all this mean? That uh, apparently I really like stories that have a character embodying someone's grief and unable to escape that grief no matter what they do.
Not really much of a theory, but I thought it was an interesting connection to be made. If you stuck with me through all of this, godspeed my friend, and thank you.
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