Hey there! I really appreciate your E33 takes, particularly your posts about Verso. It's great to see someone debunking bad takes after r/expedition33 gave me actual psychic damage. Their reading of him and almost every other character is catastrophically bad, always aiming for the most bad faith or edgy interpretations possible.
I was curious if you have an opinion on this one common Reddit take: "Verso intentionally seduced Sciel or Lune knowing that his plans would kill them and therefore he is SCUM." I've played the game twice, did both romance routes and did not get that impression at all. Sciel approaches him first and stresses that it's a casual, no-strings FWB arrangement, which she ends after discovering Pierre can be brought back. Lune does not sleep with him until the conclusion of her personal quest in Act 3, which is after Verso abandons his original plans but before he changes his mind after seeing Aline return for the final Renoir boss fight.
Neither of them are a deep, intimate romance with feelings attached. Both Sciel and Lune initiate the s*xual encounters and Verso is free to reject them via player choice. To accuse him of seducing them (or even r*p*ng them, I wish I was exaggerating this particular Redditor claim jfc) feels like a denial of both women's sexual agency. It also feels OOC for Verso, who doesn't want to get too attached to the party members in spite of his own desire for emotional connection. I'm not downplaying Lune and Sciel's deaths in his ending either, but they seemed more like collateral casualties that Verso is visibly upset about rather than coldblooded murder targeting them specifically.
Sorry for writing an essay in your askbox, I just hope I'm understanding this bit of Verso discourse right. Please feel free to add your thoughts and any further debunking or clarification.
oh ANON you have no idea how many thoughts i have about this. like, so many. And i’ve had some really great conversations with other fans too about it. the topic feels deeply complex and I think in the full hindsight of the game it will land differently for some people depending on the personal context they bring to it. (thanks, btw, for reading my posts!) Let’s get into it, starting with easy and getting to the harder ones further down:
1. The romantic encounters are entirely skippable.
You may get offered one or both, but they only proceed if you--the player--elects to do so. Therefor, there is no “canon” scenario around how they happen, or don’t happen. It’s 100% canon that Verso can hook up with either Sciel or Lune, and it’s 100% canon that he turns them both down. To that end, using it as ammunition in trying to make a list of sins for blaming the character is, I think, on shaky ground from the start. Harping on it just calls attention to the game mechanics clashing with the story. Does the game need romance/hookups? No. Maybe they did it to match genre conventions for RPGs. Maybe they did it because the devs really like that aspect of games. Maybe they thought it was realistic and appropriate for adults in their 30s to consider having casual, Friends-with-benefits intimacy in their last year of life while out in the wilderness knowing they could die tomorrow. All of those are valid reasons, but at the end of the day the player has to elect to participate.
2. These are not romantic relationships.
This is worth mentioning because we talk about “romancing” an NPC in the sense that “romance” has a verb context particular to video games. But these are not actual romantic relationships. Neither party makes a commitment, and the language used to describe the encounters themselves is euphemistic and somewhat distancing: “adventure”, “helping with my song” etc. These are hookup scenes, fade-to-black sexual encounters, not people falling in love and getting betrayed by someone they thought they adored.
This is a choice I actually really *like* about the game. While I think either pairing could be the basis of a potential relationship in another life, in an AU fanfic or something, in this world that seems both out of reach and risky. These aren’t high school protagonists falling for their teammates or even people in their 20s having their first adult love story. These are 32-year old warriors, explorers, and expeditioners ready to die for the mission. If they want to have sex, then go fucking forward. Seduce whoever you want. Get that booty; I’m not gonna judge you for slamming the sexy hobo.
3. Both women initiate the encounters. Verso doesn’t pursue or seduce them. Neither does he manipulate or arrange a scenario to foster such.
With Sciel, Verso either doesn’t understand her offer at first, or he makes the safe comment just in case. I just watched this scene recently with the Dr.Mick playthrough on Twitch (I am loving his stream it’s great. no spoilers!), and he makes a good point, which I’ll paraphrase here: Sciel is being vague with her initial question. In a survival situation like this, if Verso thought she was propositioning and she wasn’t, that can backfire badly and potentially cause group disruption. So Verso asking about Nevrons is the safer way to react until he can get clarification. This whole part of the stream is worth watching because he makes some great observations about both characters. And I am very interested to see how he returns to this relationship after he gets to Act 3.
^ all this might seem off topic a bit, but I wanted to just highlight a stream I’m enjoying and the fact that Verso is actually doing the opposite of seducing, here. It takes multiple comments for him and Sciel to be on the same page about her offer, and he doesn’t goad or flirt to push it. I won’t go into the Lune scene much, except to say that when I played, I didn’t even realize I was triggering it, it was that vague. I actually wanted to romance Lune so I was happy, but I didn’t know that would be the outcome for the dialog choices. This is how oblique the game is about this stuff.
4. Should there even be a romance mechanic in this game?
I can see an argument that they only did it to fit the genre tropes and not because the story needs it. But I also think it’s okay to depict adults having sex in a story and it’s okay to do that in a relationship mechanic since we’ve all played games that present it that way. It’s fine. I romanced Lune. I felt like a heel at the end of the game, but the run is the run. I played the game I played.
5. Hard topic now: Neither encounter is rape, sexual assault, or coercion.
The parties are willing participants both times.. I think even framing the act 3 Lune scene in that way is beyond ridiculous, since Verso was Lune’s ally with no conspiracy when they hooked up. Therefore I’ll be primarily talking about the Sciel Act 2 scene for the next points.
I’ll get into the complexity of foreknowledge later, but for now I’ll say this: in the space of what the characters are experiencing in act 2 and what expectations they have for the sexual encounter itself, Sciel and Verso are both consenting adults. Nothing happens in that encounter that harms either party, and they got what they wanted from it. The future gommage is not a result of their having sex, and it happens even if the player declines the seduction. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I just *can’t* interpret this scene as SA or worse. Doing so denies Sciel the agency she has over her own choices (@doubtmask I’m sure you can elaborate on that), and it feels like this framing is often used as a bad-faith argument to vilify Verso by players who are probably mad at him for other reasons.
THAT BEING SAID---
6. In the full context of Act 2, i think Verso sleeping with Sciel is deeply grossly shitty.
If I were in Sciel’s place, and I came back from the dead, and I realized that I had been intimate with someone who was planning events he knew would cause me to die, I would feel gross. I would feel like my trust had been violated. I would lose respect for him and feel betrayed. I don’t expect a character to feel like I do, but I admit I think she should have been more critical about this to him. It feels like the writers just didn’t want to spend time on that angle, so they reinforced her cool nature and her excitement about getting her husband back. Whatever, it’s a writing choice.
On the topic of Verso, though... I think he was wrong to do it. Probably he was lonely--I do think his affection for the team is real--but regardless, I think he was wrong to say yes to her. I take sex pretty seriously as a safety issue, even a one-time type, and so this is a big nope on the ethics for me. If you’re someone who has been lied to by partners before, and you play this game and feel grossed out by the implications of Verso having sex with someone he is manipulating to their ultimate death--that’s 100% valid. I don’t ever want to tell someone they’re wrong for feeling grossed out by that. I could understand if that tarnishes the character for you forever, honestly.
THAT BEING SAID...
7. Not everyone has that same orientation to casual sex.
I fully believe there are people in the world who would see a hookup up like that as a completely separate thing from any future betrayal in another context. I know because I’ve met people who are that casual about it. This is a situation where I think the judgements we make against a character reveal more than you’d think about how we personally feel about sex, safety, bodies, etc. Just like it surprised me as an adult to realize how many people have tried cocaine, I’ve also been surprised by the wide breadth of attitudes people have towards sex.
It’s entirely plausible that for Verso and Sciel, their hook up has nothing do with his actions in leading them to the monolith. And the fact that she offers to sleep with him again in Act 3 indicates to me that Sciel, at least, doesn’t regard their first encounter as a violation of her safety or a sexual exploitation. (I could make a joke here about the French being hedonists, but tbh I don’t know enough about French culture to know how they feel about hookups either.)
So that leaves me at an impasse: Would I be angry? Do I find his participation in their hookup icky in hindsight?
Yeah. But I am not the characters, and the characters are not me.
8. That brings me to another question: what is the line between being a “shitty” character and an “evil” character?
Can a person be shitty and selfish and even take advantage when it comes to sex, without being a predator? I don’t know. I think that line will vary for everyone. I watch the camp scenes and I just don’t think we’re meant to see Verso as a predator. We’re just not. If the game wanted us to read it that way, they would have had him initiating. They would have made it unskippable. They would have brought it up in act 3. They would have done so many different choices.
I also think it’s worthwhile here to note that the lead writer of the game is a woman. While gender doesn’t determine if someone is writing something in a right/wrong/good/bad way, this isn’t a game where the writing and production team are all men and where it feels like the romance scenes are presented for gamer fan service for a male audience. I don’t get any of that vibe.
9. Finally: In the list of Verso’s sins, letting Sciel seduce him is like... #89435 in the rankings
Y’all.
Y’all.
HE ERASES THE ENTIRE CANVAS.
Let’s have some perspective here. I stan a problematic character, that’s for sure. And if you want a reason to convince people he’s bad, you don’t have to fall back on exaggerating or misrepresenting his romance scenes to be felonies. Our boy has done enough. He let a monster free knowing that the monster would obliterate the people he has befriended. He let his allies participate in the very course of action that led to their own demise, while believing they were fighting for their right to live. And if you choose his ending, he facilitates the end of what remains of the world and all the beings within it.
You don’t need to say “But Verso seduced them!!” It’s really not necessary. He’s already not getting any presents from Santa this year, trust me. The ones who dislike him already have reasons enough, and the ones who do like him aren’t going to be swayed by theatrics. You can dislike him, it’s fine. Take the game however you like.
r/expedition33 common refrain: Verso is compelled to lie and he can't help it. They shouldn't have even given us a choice with Maelle, because his nature would be to lie.
I don't think Verso is compelled to lie... he basically stops lying entirely after he achieves his goal of saving Aline. I see everything he did in act 1 and act 2 as a long standing effort to achieve that goal, and afterwards he's just exhausted. He helps Maelle cause he doesn't know what to do with himself, but while doing so he starts to find hope again and think about the future in companion conversations.
So when we get to the point of the Act 3 Gustave conversation, I found it pretty easy to side with truth. I couldn't think of a reason Verso would lie at this point. It doesn't help anything, and it doesn't protect anything. He's already done the "worst" thing he could by setting Renoir free, so it's not like disappointing Maelle would change much. I think he's also probably still sad about Alicia too. I think Verso is trying to be closer to people in Act 3 as well, so it just made sense to me to have it be truth.
Act 3 Verso is out of fucks to give, so he'd just be honest. All his lies in act 2 (surprisingly fewer lies than I expected on replay; it's mostly misdirection and omission) are towards a goal. He doesn't seem to get any pleasure, gratification, or positive sensation of power from lying.
On NG+, watching Verso reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Departed: lying is a tool of survival and purpose, but gives no emotional benefit. And causes visible distress in the moments when he can't mask it.
I wish the game hadn't given us the choice at all, and just had him say it. But I suppose they wanted a juicy choice to give you such a strong ability as Gommage.
Question plucked from the doldrums of r/expedition33 on Reddit:
Why is begging to stay in a place that will _eventually_ kill you somehow worse or less understandable than begging to be killed immediately? I don't understand why people see Verso's wish to die as somehow more correct than Maelle's wish for something that will eventually probably lead to her death.
This was a very downvoted question that was buried in a deep thread, but I took a while answering it and I feel like my answer is worth sharing here:
I think there's a couple reasons actually. While both scenes are upsetting and involve desperate pleas, there are some significant differences.
1. Maelle doesn't see the canvas as her death. Verso and Renoir see it that way, but she sees it as the life she wants. So to her, she is not begging for death.
This probably feels different from Verso bc Maelle seems to be in denial about her death, which is not what people typically think of when discussing suicide, right to end one's life, etc. Which isn't to say that Maelle's autonomy doesn't also deserve consideration--it does--but her begging scene feels fundamentally different than what Verso is asking for. So that probably affects people's response as players.
2. Maelle has an unfathomable level of power and control over both their fates that Verso does not and never will have. The only reason he even is able to "stop" her here is because they are in the creation space and, tbh, raw narrative convenience. Verso is denying her this world but he is not denying her the right to kill herself in other canvases later. In fact, he tells her she has a gift and can choose her own life in the future. In contrast, Maelle's ending not just denies Verso right to die, but also denies him the right to live or die as himself in her version of the canvas.
Basically--when Maelle loses her fate is still her own. When Verso loses his fate becomes hers to adjudicate. This is why a lot more people have voiced empathy/sympathy for his pleading reaction than hers.
3. Maelle's final words are "Don't do this. Don't leave me again." Even though she does really want to live her escapist life, I think it's significant that the last thing she says is tying back to her grief and her inability to let "him" go. This leaves the audience with the feeling that this is about holding on to her brother--even a copy of him--as much or more as it is about her own autonomy.
At this point in the story we can all feel empathy for her desire to escape loneliness and pain, but I have far less empathy for her desire to hold on to this person and mold him into being someone that he's not. In both endings she treats him like her late brother instead of the individual that he is. It's very sad and I think it affects the way that a lot of players, myself included, view her apparent mindset at the very end of the game.
4. In "A Life to Paint" it's clear that Verso hasn't just "respawned" or "reformed" (this is a new copium theory that no one seems able to cite anywhere). He has been repainted in some manner by Maelle. His scars are gone, including the one he shares with his real father, which he kept for *decades* as a sign of his what it costs to walk his own path. The markers of any individuality he had as Painted Verso have been wiped away and what's left is just an older skin of her original brother.
In immediate hindsight, this makes his begging feel even more upsetting. It's not just that his god refused to give him peace, it's that she changed him to match her will and now he's just going through the motions in her play world.
That's going to engender a lot more sympathy and horror from the audience when contrasted to the shot of Alicia holding Esquie and smiling sadly at her brother's grave.
Expedition 33 Reddit fandom continues to be a source of lol takes.
Today's r/expedition33 gem: Verso reconstituted on his own on the other side of the portal, because HE'S IMMORTAL, and all Maelle did was remove "Maman's gift" his immortality, and refuse to unpaint him. So she didn't REPAINT HIM, she just REFUSED TO UNPAINT HIM. She didn't do anything against his will, bc he never died. he was alive the whole time.
bonus round: being "unpainted" is not the same as being "gommaged" DON'T YOU KNOW HOW IMMORTALITY WORKS
