There's many points in Clair Obscur when the character has a noble front reason and a selfish backup reason. It's particularly on display in act 3.
Noble - Save his sister, save his mother, stop the cycle.
Selfish - Wants his own death.
Noble - Save the canvas residents and Gustave, save Verso’s only work of soul art.
Selfish - Have a playground to escape into without pain, where she is loved and no one challenges her.
You can even go into earlier decisions...
Maellicia gommaging Painted Alicia:
Noble - Give Alicia peace, honor her wishes.
Selfish - Erase the reminder of Maellicia's own pain and the life she rejects, maybe jealously since Verso only needs one Alicia to roleplay as his sister.
Verso letting Gustave die:
Noble - Best odds to get his mother out of the canvas and save her.
Selfish - Convenience, and maybe jealousy that Alicia was so close to a painted older brother.
Clair Obscur is packed with examples of narrative duality, the most dramatic of which are embodied by Verso and Maelle. Over and over again, they trace the same patterns as mirrors of each other. As protagonists they both selfish and self-sacrificing. How you calculate that ratio may differ depending on how sympathetically or critically you interpret their motivations. Yet what's incredible to me about the story is how it gives us the honorable and the dishonorable reasons for why characters make the choices they do.
The noble reason makes them sympathetic and admirable, but the selfish reason makes them feel human and realistic.
And importantly: both are true.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, like its artistic namesake, celebrates dissonance. Two things can be true at once, and beauty is found in the contrast.
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