guys i have to show you my favorite house of all time. words cannot describe. have you ever wanted a house with a pool because do i have the house for YOU
2 bedroom, 2 bath, a nice exterior. i like the red door and red chimney!
the kitchen, i thought, opens up to the backyard/pool. it's not quite my style but i think they were going for some 70s futurism and i don't hate it, you can work with it!
huh, the living room seems... small.
not a huge fan of the bathroom and second bedroom, but...
wait, this is the master bedroom? can i get a layout on this thi--
This house was not originally a house. That's why it's weird as shit. It and the house next door were built as a single property in 1948. The 'Master Bedroom' was a glass enclosed hallway connecting the two. See this plan from when the properties were subdivided into two in 1992
Previously, both buildings - which were really one building - were owned by a Robert H Belsky. He sold the building on the left (the main house) in 1992 and retained this weirdo building.
This is the main house (left) with our Weird Fucking 'House' sort of of behind it to the right. There's no listing photos of the main house as the person who bought it in 1992 still owns it, so it's never been listed on the internet.
The Main House is ~3,000 sq ft and has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathroom. It sits on just over 3/4 of an acre and is valued at about 600k
This was a BIG house for 1948. I mean it's a big house for now but it's an enormous house for 1948 (assuming none of tat square footage is from later additions)
"Don't speak ill of the dead" my ass. If you didn't want people talking shit about you when you're no longer there to defend yourself, you should've been a better person.
I always took it to mean, like, don't bitch about Mrs. Obnoxious in front of her grieving children, not 'you can't say anything bad about a dead person ever' but let me tell you some people really do seem to take the latter approach and it's EXHAUSTING. "don't speak ill of the dead" are Ronald Reagan's descendants in this room right now?
Hi! A drawing dedicated to Clair Obscur Expedition 33 video game 🥹❤️ by my bad luck I couldn't play it because I don't have playstation but I followed it on youtube and loved it from the beginning to end❤️
I've been rotating thoughts and theories about the Dessendre manor fire for a couple of days now and I felt the need to organize everything we know, everything we can infer, and everything that I theorize into one long analysis post. Because it won't leave my head until I do.
Strap yourselves in and prepare for a lot of questions, not a lot of answers, and entirely too much rambling.
Alicia's Sin
Let's start with the most obvious, most repeated piece of hard knowledge - Alicia is somehow to blame.
Clea says it, Aline says it, Painted Renoir says it, Alicia herself says it, the real Renoir never says it but also never denies it. How, exactly, is what's left vague and uncertain. All we know is that Alicia disobeyed Aline and trusted the Writers, despite the stated tensions between Writers and Painters.
Why?
...I can take a guess.
Clearly, Alicia's passions lean far more towards writing than painting. The fact that the above painting is the best she could do, at twice Verso's age, with one of the most skilled Paintresses in Paris as her teacher? Yikes. Something is going on here. I've previously wondered about the possibility of her having aphantasia, but the more likely scenario is more complicated. She likely felt as though she could never measure up to the rest of her family in art, which discouraged her from really trying, which caused her to fall behind further, which caused them to push her more, and - well.
Anyone who's read any of my other analysis posts knows that I firmly believe that this family loved each other very much and that there was no abuse or neglect happening. But obviously, they also aren't perfect - no person or family is. And if there's one other common trait in this family, it's their stubbornness, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was starting to cause friction. Her writing hobby was clearly allowed at the very least, given her personal collection of books and two typewriters, but it's doubtful that it was encouraged, especially once tensions with the Writers were rising.
This part is purely conjecture, but I've always strongly suspected that Alicia, as the youngest, was spoiled and sheltered by her parents. Her naivete, likely mixed with a sense of isolation from having no Writer friends to share her hobby with, made her uniquely vulnerable to their schemes. However. I'm not downplaying the severity of her mistake; only theorizing as to the root causes of it. Regardless of what she might have been dealing with at the time, she still made a decision that ended up causing the death of her brother, a decision she was warned against by Aline.
The Hand of the Writers
The enigmatic Writers are probably what we know least about in the entire Clair Obscur universe - we don't know who they are, why they're fighting the Painters, what their powers do, how they interacted with Alicia...
We have found out one thing - according to the artbook, Alicia was the target of the fire. Why? ...We don't know. Of the possible scenarios I've heard or thought about, two seem the most plausible:
Alicia somehow figured out or learned Writing and was seen as a threat because of it
Someone in the Writers wanted war and befriended Alicia with the intent of using her death as a catalyst
Could be either. Could be neither. We just. Don't. Know. And we barely even have enough to guess. All we can infer is that Alicia trusted someone she shouldn't and somehow caused some kind of vulnerability that could be exploited. Maybe it was political. Maybe it has to do with how their Writing works. In the end, all I can do is shrug.
The Fire
Even the event itself is shrouded in mystery. All we know is that it fell on or around December 33rd, the date on Verso's grave. And that it likely started in or near Alicia's room.
It's really, really hard to tell in the cutscene because of how dark it is, but I'm certain that Alicia's nightmare depicts the fire in her room - the pillar and the wardrobe-thing are in the same positions on either side of the door and the Eiffel Tower can be glimpsed out the window (which we see out her window in the Epilogue). This also lines up with the glimpse of the fire we see in Painted Alicia's vision.
Clearly on the right side, which is the side that the children's bedrooms are on. Should be cut and dry - and yet.
Why. In the name of all that is holy. Is Alicia's bedroom completely intact during the brief interlude and the left side of the manor closed off?!?
I get that the entire Epilogue manor is basically just a reused asset for time and budget reasons (still no clue why they felt the need to close part of it off though). I get that the entire manor was probably damaged and rebuilt from scratch (remarkably fast and remarkably accurately). I know that there's some suspension of disbelief that needs to happen. BUT WHY. WHY MUST YOU BREAK ME SO. WHY.
Alicia's Birthday
This theory posits that the fire happened specifically on Alicia's birthday, due to the prevalence of birthday imagery in one of Maelle's dreams and one of the records being titled "Alicia's Birthday Party". While I think it's an interesting theory, one with a lot of merit, I don't think the fire happened during the party if it did happen, and I have a couple of reasons for this:
If the Writers wanted to target only Alicia, setting a fire at a party would be the worst way to do so. Too many extra targets to draw ire from
If there was a party, Alicia wouldn't be in her room, where it's implied Verso saved her
Renoir was implied to not be present - highly doubtful he wouldn't have been at Alicia's birthday party
However, perhaps Alicia's mistake is related to the party. Perhaps she snuck in her Writer friend(s) and they set up something for later. Perhaps it was the evening after. The references to her birthday feel too deliberate to not hold some kind of importance.
A Couple Extra Thoughts
A few extra scattered thoughts that I couldn't fit in elsewhere:
One of the memories in the Monolith is Aline painting in the middle of a fire. While she was likely in the burning manor, I'm also torn on whether to interpret this literally - if the flames were licking at her feet, why is she painting so calmly? Or is it a representation of her being within a Canvas when it happened? Alternatively, is it a metaphor for how she constantly remembers the fire and what it took, no matter how much she tries to distract herself? I'm always hesitant to interpret the memories/dreams literally, given how they're framed more for the audience's benefit.
I wouldn't be surprised if the position of the manor library, below Clea's and close to Alicia's bedroom, was intentional. If the Writers did set up a trap, it would be easy to conceal it within a library.
Where was Clea when this happened? Was she also out, like Renoir? Or was it easier for her to escape because her bedroom is closer to the door? If Aline was in the fire, was Clea the one who saved her, while Verso went to save Alicia?
Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, if I ever get my hands on you -
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