Clair Obscure plot thoughts (still early act 1, before meeting Equise)
idk if i'm reaching but the mask the lady in Maelle's dream was wearing reminds me uncannily a lot of the Gueules Cassées
the English wiki is pretty incomplete but it was the post-WWI phenomena of people coming back from the war in the trenches completely disfigured, and the medecine advancements of the time trying to "fix" the faces first with clumsy reassambling and later on prosthesis that looked like masks on people's face.
I wouldn't dare bringing the comparaison out if not for the fact the game is set with the aesthetics of La Belle Epoque, aka right before WWI.
Something something also with the way The Paintress sundered Paris in two evoking the imagery of city in trenches.
idk i'm sensing possible WWI vibes in the aesthetic at least, using La Belle Epoque as its backdrop without romanticizing the period into forgetting the horrors of the war that happened at the same time.
Because People (esp in France, but also lbr because a lot of the imagery people outside of France have of France, even not-french people) view the Belle Epoque as the Peak of French culture and the one you will always see represented in media.
But it was a period where, for as much beauty and revival that came after the Great Depression, lots of turmoil still were happening, the shadow of the war was looming, the inequalities, the drastic rise of antisemitism ect... still haunts this period and it's a fair warning of the romantization of said period without acknowledging its bad sides as well
.... or it's just a very stylized porcelain mask and i'm babbling over nothing, but, putting a pin on that in case it becomes relevant in any way.











